Raising Bella
by MilkshakeFanfiction
Summary: Edward Cullen's life is turned upside down one night as he takes in the scent of the most desirable blood imaginable. But he discovers the scent in the form of a two year old, alone in the woods. Can he resist temptation long enough to raise her?
1. Discovery

_Hi. This is Kim and Rosealyn (doggiesrule147 and LifeIsTooQuick). We're friends and like writing fanfiction, so we decided to attempt a co-written story and this is it._

_I'm Kim, otherwise known as doggiesrule147 on fanfiction. Like my co-writer said, this is our attempt at a Twilight fic. We've totally been planning this for months, and I swear, it is not a knock off! Er...I hope you enjoy this fic and, if Dawson's Creek or Mighty Duck's tickle your fancy, head over to my author's page and check out some of my fics!_

_I'm Rosealyn (Obviously considering the fact that Kim already wrote her part.) I'm not quite sure how I got roped into this holds a deep detest for most Twilight fanfiction but I'm here, so I hope it doesn't suck. Also, like Kim said, we've been planning this thing for months-we wanted it to be perfect before giving it a shot. We, then, noticed a few (I think I've counted three since we started) that have this same plot. We are SO sorry. That was completely unintentional and we are in no way attempting to steal the other people's story plots. We all just kind of got the same idea. Sorry._

_Enjoy. :)_

* * *

Two-year-old Isabella Swan's eyes snapped open as she heard a faint crash coming from her parents' bedroom. She then heard some banging and a scream. Curious, she slipped out of bed, hugging her stuffed rabbit, Bun-bun, close to herself and shuffled out into the hallway.

She made her way down the dark hallway, hearing loud popping sounds and more screaming coming from the room. She was several feet from the door when it burst open and her mother ran out of it. Isabella got one look at the dark rectangle that was the open door and a pair of menacing red eyes before her mother scooped her up and bolted down the stairs and towards the back door. She got it opened and ran outside, setting Isabella down on the ground to look her over.

The little girl stared up at her mother, scared now. She looked a mess. Her hair was disheveled, her nightgown was ripped and she was bleeding. Behind the tears in her eyes she looked terrified. This just made the two-year-old even more frightened.

"Where Daddy?" the little girl blurted out before her mother could speak and that only increased the look of anxiety in her eyes. The woman stared down at her daughter and made her decision as quickly as she could. Their house was set far back from the rest of the town, near the woods. Their closest neighbors were miles away, there was no way she would be able to run with the child far enough to get help. But, maybe she could stall long enough for her to get far enough away that she wouldn't be found.

"Bella, sweetie. I need you do to something for Mommy and it's very important." Isabella looked up at her attentively, wondering what was going on. "I need you to turn around and run into the forest and not turn around and not to come back, ok?"

She stared at her mother with pure terror in her eyes. Running into the dark woods alone was the last thing she wanted to do. Especially with her mother looking so panic-stricken and after everything that had happened inside of the house. Isabella was only two, but she was still able to pick up on what was going on around her, even if only a bit of it.

"Honey, please do this for me. Ok?" She nodded feebly and her mother gave her a fierce hug and a small kiss on the cheek before turning her toward the woods and giving her a slight push. "Go, Bella! Run!"

She took off running as fast as she could, driven by the fear in her mother's voice. A few moments later she heard some more crashing and clattering and some more of her mother's screams-this time in pain. Btu she didn't stop. She just kept running into the darkness.

* * *

Edward savored the feeling of freedom he got as he ran. After a particularly boring day of re-organizing everything in his room and trying to ignore all the people around him, he had finally decided to go for a run, which turned into a short hunting trip. After he was done, which was in the early evening, he decided to just sit around in the meadow-like clearing he had found earlier in the week to spend some alone time.

These were the moments Edward enjoyed the most-the ones where he could just be alone and think. There weren't that many moments where he could do this, as he usually had the thoughts of others invading the privacy of his mind. It was a good thing he was a vampire instead of human, or else he would probably walk through life with a constant headache.

He laid back on the grass and closed his eyes, enjoying the pure silence. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy his family or being around them, it was just hard sometimes. Edward always felt like a third-or rather, seventh-wheel whenever he was around his family. Everyone was paired off. It was like some vampire-Noah's Arc. Carlisle had Esme, Rosalie had Emmett, and Alice had Jasper. Edward had books and cd's. While entertaining at times, they did not provide any source of social interaction for him and he would often get bored with them rather quickly. So he spent most of his time running off to some new place-he found a new one for each of the places they moved to- to be alone.

After several hours, he got up from his stationary position in the grass and looked around him in the pitch blackness. He vaguely wondered how long he had been out here and decided he should start heading back. He turned in the direction of his house and began running.

He had been running for about five minutes when he suddenly stopped. A slight breeze has started blowing and with it came the most amazing scent he had ever smelled. In all his years on Earth, not one human had smelled so delectable. So heavenly. So delicious. Every instinct in his body told him to attack, to drink it. Supplement himself. Instantly, he turned and began running in the direction of the mouth-watering scent. He was preparing himself to pounce on whatever was producing the wonderful smell when he heard a small sound. It was a slight shuffling and a quiet sniffling sound, almost lost in the rustling of the forest.

Edward doubled around to approach the sound from a direction that was not downwind of its scent. The sound led him to a tree, behind the tree was a small figure of white with some dark color splashed across it. After looking closer, he realized it was a small girl, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees and hiding her face in them. She was very tiny. If she stood up she would probably be no higher than Edward's knees. She was wearing a white nightgown-now darkened in some places from dirt and other debris from the forest, the dark splash had been her mahogany colored hair, splayed out across her knees.

Edward took another step toward the girl, wondering what she was doing out in the woods alone. Where were her parents? He focused, trying to hear what the girl was thinking, but he got nothing. That was surprising. He stared at her again. Yes. She was alive. She hadn't died in the past few seconds. He could still hear her heart beating. So, why couldn't he hear anything? Concentrating more, Edward took another step, thinking maybe he would be able to hear her. In his distraction he stepped on a twig causing the girl's head to snap up. She gasped in fear and bolted to another tree, hiding behind it. He made a move to follow her, but something caught his eye. He glanced down at the spot she had been crouching in moments before and spotted a small, brown stuff rabbit. The girl must've dropped it. He picked it up and turned to the tree the girl was now hiding behind. She had been inconspicuously trying to poke her head around the tree, whether to examine Edward or because she realized she had forgotten her toy and was looking for an opportunity to grab it and run, Edward couldn't tell. She gasped again and ducked back behind the tree. Edward took a few cautious steps toward the girl and then kneeled down on the ground so he could be on the same level with her.

"Hey, come here," he said, making his voice as soothing as possible. He held the stuffed rabbit out in front of him as a peace offering and watched as the little girl carefully poked her head back around the tree. Edward beckoned with his hand for her to come toward him, "Come on, it's ok. I won't hurt you." She just stared at him, seeming to deliberate. Edward wondered, again, what had happened to her and why she was here. He also wondered if she would actually come toward him. As a general rule, her kind tended to shy away from his kind. So he was shocked when she stepped out from behind the tree and took a step toward him. "That's it, come on," he encouraged her. She took another tentative step and Edward stayed absolutely still, as if she were a butterfly and one wrong move would send her flying away forever. She made the last few steps and snatched her rabbit out of his hands, but instead of running away in the other direction like he assumed she would, she leaped into his arms, snuggling herself against him. He froze, trying not to breathe. He hadn't been expecting something like that and her scent had hit him like a wrecking ball. **(A/N: Yes, I used the "wreckign ball" line. I know, cliche, but it works.)** He had to close his eyes and think very hard about the fact that this was a small, defenseless child in his arms. Killing her would be bad. Worse than bad. He opened his eyes slowly to see her staring at him. Her doe brown eyes were full of fear and desperation and he knew that he could never hurt her. He pulled back slightly and set her down on the ground, still kneeling in front of her so he could look her in the eyes as he spoke.

"My name's Edward. What's yours?" he asked, attempting to set up an environment of familiarity with the small child. She just stood there, hugging her rabbit, staring at him. "Do you live around here?" Silence. "Where are your parents?" More silence. "Can you speak?" Nothing. Maybe he was right, then, maybe she couldn't speak yet. She didn't look that old.

Edward looked around him. They were in the middle of the woods… Where was the closest house? He stepped a few feet away from the toddler and sniffed the air, trying to find which direction the girl had come from. He picked up on a faint trail through the woods that headed north-east and figured that must be where the child had come from. He picked her up and held her closely, making sure he wouldn't drop her, and took off running in the direction the trail was heading. The little girl let out a slight gasping shriek and buried her face in Edward's shirt. He couldn't help but laugh slightly at her reaction.  
After several minutes he arrived at a small, two-story house. It was set off away from all the other houses-and buildings-of the town. He listened for the sounds of the people inside, wondering if the parents had noticed that their daughter was missing. He couldn't hear anything. At all. No thoughts, no breathing, no heart beats. Nothing. The absence of wind had alerted the girl to the fact that they were no longer in motion. She looked around and, spotting her house, let out a small squeal of delight and began squirming in Edward's arms. He let her down and she immediately ran into the house. He followed her, feeling slightly apprehensive to let her out of his sight. Especially with no one else around. He heard her feet patter toward the front of the house and then head up the staircase.

As soon as he entered the house, however, he froze with wide eyes. He smelled blood. A _lot _of blood. He walked through the kitchen, which looked like a tornado had ripped through it, and down the hallway, following the scent. He heard his foot make a crunching sound and he looked down and picked up what he had stepped on. It was a photograph in a frame that had, apparently, once been hanging on the wall of the hallway. The picture was of the little girl and two other people, presumably her parents. Edward knew one of them-it was Charlie Swan, the Chief of Forks Police. What the hell had happened here?

He turned around to follow the scent again and saw the a door on the other side of the hallway slightly ajar. He opened the door and the scent got much stronger. He walked in, dreading what he was about to find and gasped. The room was trashed. Almost everything in it was broken and strewn across the floor. Lying in the middle of the debris was a women who looked to be in her early twenties. Her body was completely mutilated, as if she had been thrown around the room before she had died. No human could have done this much damage. He stepped forward and examined the woman's body. Despite all the cuts and bruises covering her body and the blood smeared across her face, he could tell that it was the little girl's mother. He could also see the various bite marks, disguised as slash marks, that covered her. Just like he had thought-a vampire had done this.

Edward could only think of one vampire who would-and could- do this, but he was supposed to have left the area yesterday…

* * *

_**FLASHBACK**_

"_This is starting to get way out of control," Edward commented as he read the newspaper article that was reporting the forty-second death in the general area since the Summer had begun. The humans were all in a panic, going on about a crazed serial killer on the loose. _

_Of course, Edward and his family knew better. A mere human wasn't causing this, it was a particularly murderous vampire- one who couldn't stand to just kill, feed, and go. He instead decided to torture and mutilate his prey. Which, in turn, made it obvious that some crazed individual was doing it. Most vampires had enough sense to make their killings look like accidents or the work of some animal. But this vampire didn't seem to even care at all about keeping his presence secret. _

"_Maybe we should have a talk with this vampire," Carlisle suggested. The vampire's actions were threatening their own secrecy in the community._

"_Or we could kick his ass," Emmett suggested. Edward rolled his eyes. Of course the first thought in Emmett's mind would be to beat the vampire up._

"_I'm sure that's not necessary," Carlisle argued, "He probably doesn't even realize that he's causing any potential problems for us."_

_Edward scoffed at that. How could this vampire not notice that there were other vampires in the area._

_''We should still go to him.," Jasper urged, finally entering the conversation. ''The last thing we need is for him to reveal us.''  
''He might notice," Emmett threw in. ''He just doesn't care. I say, once again, we go kick his ass.''  
''You may have a point.," Carlisle mused softly.  
Emmett gave a triumphant grin, while Edward waited for Carlisle to speak again. ''We should go to him. Show him we're here and that we need him to stop.''_

_Edward nodded and stood up, trying to think of a plan for how they could track him down. He decided one and turned to leave the room, running into his sister._

"_You wanted me?" Alice asked, flashing an impish grin at the men in the room._

* * *

_Alice led them through the quiet streets of Forks to a small house at the end of the dead-end street. There they waited for ten minutes until they sensed someone moving in the shadows._

"_Ah," a taunting voice spoke from the darkness, "The Cullen clan. Human wannabes… What are you doing here? Decided to give up on the diet? Well, you'll have to pick a different house. This one is mine.' _

_''Enough James. People are beginning to notice.'' Edward snarled._

"_Notice what?" he shot back, feigning ignorance._

"_What the hell do you think? Forty-two deaths within fifteen miles of each other in just ten weeks. You seriously thought that would go unnoticed? The humans are clueless to our existence, James, they're not stupid."  
''So? Why should I care?''  
''You can 'not care' all you want, but the Volturi might care a little bit more than you do. And getting them involved would be bad," Jasper commented.  
For once, a speck of fear entered James' red eyes before he pushed it away. ''So? You wouldn't dare call them on me.''  
''And why not? You could get us discovered.'' Emmett growled.  
''You want me to stop?''_

"_Obviously," Alice shot, speaking for the first time and rolling her eyes. James shot a look at her and Jasper not-so-inconspicuously took a step toward James that put him in between the two. James seemed to find this hysterically funny._

"_OK, fine. I'll tell you what. I'm getting a little bored here. So I'll just get this one last family and then I'll be on my merry little way and I won't bother your 'peaceful' little existence here."_

"_No," Carlisle argued in a reasonable tone, "You have already killed forty-two people here in the last two and a half months. You do not need to kill another, let alone three. You look perfectly well-fed. So leave now and you can hunt in several weeks when you actually need to."_

_A flash of anger shot through James' eyes, but he quickly gained control of himself. He glanced at the five Cullens that stood before him, debating different courses of action quickly._

"_All right," he finally decided, "Since I am clearly out-numbered here and you seem to want me gone sooner rather than later, I'll just leave. Good-bye. It was…" He flashed a look at each of them in turn. "Nice… To meet you all."_

_And with that he turned and disappeared down the road, presumably, to move on to his next location._

_**END FLASHBACK**_

* * *

That had been two nights before and James was supposed to have left by now. But who else would do this?

Edward sniffed the air again, concentrating now on any scents hidden behind the smell of this woman's blood. He could smell more spilled blood upstairs-he winced, probably Chief Swan's, the blood that was currently still running through the little girl's veins, various smells that you would smell in a normal human home, and something else that made him snarl in anger. James had definitely been here. Which means he had lied to them.

But that didn't make any sense. Despite that one night being the only time Edward had ever met James, he had still gotten a pretty good glimpse into his mind-enough to know why and how he did what he did and be thoroughly disturbed by it. As they had suspected, he was a crazed individual. James killed, not out of need, but out of sheer boredom. He thought it was great fun to hunt down his prey and then play with it. He didn't discriminate and he didn't spare individuals. Even a two-year-old girl. So what had happened?

Edward examined the damage around him and began thinking. He finally could come to only one conclusion: the excessive damage in the house made it look as if this woman had given up an exceptionally huge fight. Possibly to allow her daughter some time to escape into the woods and attempt to run to safety. Her attempts were pretty futile. As soon as he was done with her, James was sure to run after the little girl. He wouldn't let even that one little defeat. So, the plan had no hope of working. Unless the little girl happened to stumble across a vampire with slightly better morals.

He was suddenly struck with a horrifying thought. James _must_ be looking for that girl, right now. Edward knew he wouldn't give up that easily. Which means he could show up back at the house at any moment. Or could be up in her room right now, waiting for her…

Edward dashed up the stairs as fast as he could. Ignoring the door he knew would lead him to the Chief's dead body, he threw open the door on the other side of the hall. She was alone. Thankfully. She was sitting on her bed, hugging her rabbit and staring at the door. When Edward walked in she jumped up, smiling and ran over to him, wrapping her arms around his legs. Edward sighed and then picked her up. What was he going to do now? There was no way he could just leave her here. She snuggled against his chest and closed her eyes, hugging her rabbit to her. Within moments she was asleep.

Edward watched her for a few moments before making his mind up and running out the door, holding her close to him so he wouldn't drop her. He would have to talk about this with his family.

* * *

_There's chapter one. Hope you liked it. If you did we'll post most chapters. If you didn't we'll elt it slowly slip into fanfiction oblivion and die. So, we really hope you liked it. :)_


	2. What Should We Do?

AN- Kim: Howdy every body. Welcome back to this amazing fic, I'm glad everyone is liking this fic, we've spent a lot of time planning it. This is chapter two, I hope this pleases all of you...uh...yeah so, enough of this long AN. Go read and enjoy!

Rosealyn: Clearly, she forgot I have to add in my two cents, otherwise she wouldn't have told you to read yet. I'm glad people actually like this, that's exciting. And, in advance, I'm just letting you all know that I totally disapprove of the "tow-truck" line (it doesn't even make any sense), but Kim won't let up... Oh, well. Enjoy. :)

* * *

Edward arrived outside the Cullen home, with the child sitting comfortably in his arms, but his body tensed with thirst. With a fleeting glance behind him, he entered. Esme was the first one he encountered. She took one look at the bundle in his arms and gasped.

''I did nothing.'' he explained quickly as her thoughts flashed quickly in his own mind. ''I found her in the woods. James attacked her parents.''

Esme looked closer at the baby. ''It can't be.''

''Esme?''

''That's Isabella. Her mother, Renee, showed me pictures just last week.''

''Her home was destroyed. Blood everywhere. She can't go back to that mess.''

''Of course not." Carlisle agreed, appearing quietly from his study.

''We can bring her to the hospital. Drop her off.'' Esme suggested.

By now, Bella had woken up and was peaking out from Edward's shirt. When she saw Esme staring at her, she blushed and hid her face again. Her warm head pressed against his chest made the monster inside him growl in hunger. Edward clentched his teeth and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the scent.

''No.''

''Edward-''

''James' scent was everywhere. If he discovered where she went. If he found her unprotected...'' Edward left off there, knowing the picture he'd been painting. They understood.

''But Edward, it will be all over the news. Surely people will wonder where the child has gone off to. If we kept her...it could mean being discovered.''

''You really want to let this poor, helpless child fall victim to him?'' Edward demanded. ''He mutilated her parents, killed with no remorse. Do you really think her innocent eyes will stop him!''

''Edward enough.'' Carlisle never got angry, but his firm and quiet voice had Edward swallowing the words he'd been dying to use.

''I'm not saying I don't care about the child, Edward. I just fear for us...Our family.''

Edward looked away from her peaceful gaze. He hated himself for snapping at his mother, but the idea of the child being in danger...

''What should we do?'' Edward asked.

''We need ask the others. See how they feel.'' Carlisle mused softly.

* * *

Carlisle assembled the rest of the Cullen clan into the unused kitchen, while Edward quickly ran upstairs and placed Isabella in his room. Her bright eyes watched as he ran to find a blanket and returned to her.

''It's alright. Go back to sleep, Isabella.''

She lay down on his long black couch and he drapped the blanket over her. Then, he waitied until she fell asleep before jetting downstairs. The second he was out of the room with her, he breathed in fresh air. He'd been holding his breath for so long, her scent was driving him crazy. The only thing that kept him in place were her eyes...So innocent as they looked at him, as if pleading with him to take care of her.

Alice seemed too eager for the meeting to begin. A quick look into her mind told Edward she knew exactly the reasons behind this meeting. They shared a look and he heard her thoughts.

_"You won't kill her Edward, none of us will. You will fight it.''_

''How can you tell?'' he asked, quietly. Esme looked at him curiously, but saw his gaze directed at Alice.

_''Jasper can feel your thirst...And I know this is what you fear. It's obvious, the way you keep glancing up towards your room.'' _Alice had a small smile on her lips.

Once everyone was sitting, Carlisle nodded to Edward to begin.

''I was out hunting eariler. I came accross a small child in the woods. Futher discovery led me to her home, where her parents lay dead. Killed by James.''

Emmett snarled at his name, while the rest of the Cullens experienced a brief moment of pure rage.

''I brought her here, for safety.'' Edward said. ''I think she should live with us.''

''What?!'' Rosalie demanded.

''James could come back for her. We need to leave.''

''No. We just moved here. I was getting comfortable. I'm not giving it up for some...human.'' Rosalie snarled.

Edward growled softly at her, and Emmett took a protective stance in front of her, growling back at him.

''Enough. We need to decide what we're going to do.'' Carlisle said.

''She can't stay here!'' Rosalie exclaimed. ''Japser can barely handle being around humans at school, let alone live with one.''

Jasper ducked his head in shame, while Alice lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. ''It's going to be ok, Jasper. You won't hurt her.''

''Are you sure?'' he asked quietly.

"Yes.'' Alice nodded. No one said anything, they wouldn't bet against her. "I say we vote on it.''

Carlisle nodded, and looked over at Edward, who also nodded in agreement.

''I vote she stays.'' Esme murmured.

''Stays.'' Alice chirped.

''Goes.'' Rosalie said, glaring at Edward.

''Goes.'' Emmett said quietly, avoiding Edward's eyes.

''Stays.'' Carlisle said.

''Goes.'' Jasper said, looking apologetically towards Alice.

''I vote she stays.'' Edward said. ''Majority rule.''

* * *

After the meeting, Edward went back upstairs to check on Isabella. The second he walked into the room, her scent hit him like a tow-truck. He clenched his teeth and his fist as the desire to drink her blood rose inside him. No, he told the monster, I will not kill her. He walked slowly and cautiously towards the couch, glancing down at her. She was still fast asleep under the blanket, her arms clutching her stuffed bunny tightly to her small body.

''Is she ok?''

''Wouldn't your visions tell you?'' Edward asked.

Alice's laugh sounded like wind chimes as she walked into the room. ''What's her name?''

''Isabella Swan. The Chief's daughter.'' Edward sighed. ''James needed one last hooray.''

''Rose is fixing her car. She's really angry. Emmett is trying to calm her down.''

''I don't care. How can she let this poor defenseless child go? Especially with James still out there.''

''Protecting her is best.'' Alice agreed. ''Which is why Jasper and I must leave.''

''What?''

''He's afraid, Edward. Her blood smells good and he doesn't want to slip up. Unlike you, he can't control it. We're leaving tonight.''

Edward's head fell into his hand and he groaned. Alice lay a hand on his shoulder. ''It's not your fault. You're not choosing her over us. We're choosing her life over her death. We'll be back, of course.''

''We should probably move too.''

''Carlisle and Esme are going over plans. Jasper and I are going ahead of time. We'll find a couple homes near each other.''

''I'll miss you.''

''We won't be gone forever, Edward. Just until Jasper can handle it.'' Alice said. ''I must say, I'm very proud of you.''

Edward glanced at her, confused.

''You've been able to handle her scent so well. I mean, if this was years ago...''

''She'd be dead.'' Edward, finished for her.

''But she isn't.'' Alice reminded him cheerfully.

They heard Jasper call for her and Alice smiled at Edward before darting towards her love. Edward sighed and turned back to Isabella, who was now awake.

''Hello, Isabella. How are you?''

She blinked a couple times and held the bunny closer. He sighed.

''You must still be tired. Go back to sleep.''

She blinked again, but refused to close her eyes. Undaunted, Edward traveled over to his music collection. He looked for something quiet, peaceful, reassuring. He picked one CD and placed it in his player.

Isabella's eyes widenend and she even smiled as Clair de Lune began to play. Her mother's favorite song. She closed her eyes softly and layed back down, falling asleep quickly.

* * *

Jasper was busily packing their bags when Alice walked in the room.

''In a hurry?'' she asked.

''I...I want to leave as soon as possible.''

''You won't hurt her Jasper. I didn't see it.''

''Because I decided to leave.'' he pointed out.

She sighed, knowing that arguing was pointless. Instead, she decided to help him pack. They were done quickly.

''What did you see?'' he asked quietly.

''I saw her. I knew she'd be here. I knew Edward would find her.'' she explained.

He nodded softly, running a hand through his blonde hair. ''So, where is it we're going?''

"Carlisle and Esme are finding a place. We'll leave as soon as they do.''

''So...we have time?'' he was suddenly grinning.

''Time to...oh.'' She giggled as the new emotion glazed over her. ''Jasper, there's a child in the home.''

''So?'' he asked, concentrating harder.

Alice shuddered and leaned over to kiss him passionatetly. ''You need to stop doing that.''

He just chuckled.

* * *

Rosalie angrily worked on her car, her thoughts ranging between beating Edward to a bloody pulp and wondering what she should wear tomorrow. She heard heavy footsteps behind her.

''Rose? Are you ok?''

''No, Emmett. I'm not.'' she sighed and threw down the wrench she'd been clutching in her hand. ''It's like he's choosing a human over us.''

''No, he's not. He just wants to make sure she's protected. Rosalie, she's an innocent child.''

''We've established this.'' she snapped.

''Are you sure that's the only reason you're angry? That it's not something else?''

''Like what?''

''Like Edward found a baby...and you feel like she should be yours?''

Rosalie snarled loudly and snapped her teeth in his direction. ''Rose...I know how badly you want a child. It's ok to want one. Why would you want her to leave?''

''Because, James finding out we're hiding the child he tried to kill is not on the top of my list.''

''Rose, we're leaving. She'll be safe. We will all be safe.''

''It doesn't matter! Edward is choosing that pathetic human child over his own family. The ones who stood behind him when he tried to leave the family! When he returned, we welcomed him back with open arms. Now we're all in danger of James.'' Rosalie snarled.

Emmett cautiously took her into his arms. ''We need to protect her. She has no family Rose, she needs us.''

''Fine.'' Rosalie snapped. ''But just because she's here doesn't mean I need to be nice to her. Edward can take care of her.''

* * *

Carlisle called the family down again. Rose arrived looking a little less angry, Emmett's arms wrapped around her. Edward looked calmer. Alice and Jasper arrived last, looking a bit flustered.

''We've decided on New York.'' Carlisle annoucned.

Alice squealed. New York was a great shopping city. The others merely nodded.

''Jasper and Alice will leave first. The rest of us will follow in a couple days. Ok?''

Jasper nodded and hurried upstairs to grab their bags. Alice gave everyone a short goodbye.

''I'll see you all again.'' she assured Esme as they hugged. ''This is for the best.''

As she went to hug Edward, her thoughts turned to him.

_''Care for her. She will be very important to all of us someday. And please, don't hate yourself for our departure.''_

''Of course.'' he murmured softly.

Jasper came back down and then he too bid his goodbyes. They left quickly.

* * *

Later on in that morning, the Cullen family, minus Jasper and Alice, were watching T.V. Isabella was situated on Edward's lap, watching the screen with interest. Edward may have seemed completely oblivious to this...except for the fact that his chest was not rising and falling.

''A couple of us should go to the Swan home. See if we can't find any hints to where James went.'' Carlisle said.

''Good idea. Make Edward go.'' Rose offered.

Edward hissed softly at her and Emmett sent a growl his way.

''Boys.'' Esme warned.

''What do you say, Edward. Up for a trip?'' Carlisle asked.

He glanced down at Isabella and Carlisle chuckled.

''We'll take care of her Edward.'' Esme offered, holding out her arms.

Edward sighed and passed her over to Esme. She seemed to whimper softly as Esme hands wrapped around her.

''Let's go.''

Before father and son could leave, they all heard a small, distinctly human voice.

''Edward.''

All eyes snapped towards Isabella as her arms reached out for him, her eyes pleading.

''Edward no go!''

As if reacting instintively, Edward reached for her. Her soft whimper of protest ended as soon as his arms held her comfortably.

''Carlisle, I can't.'' he whispered.

''I'll go.'' Emmett offered, standing up.

Carlisle nodded and kissed Esme goodbye, while Emmett did the same to Rosalie.

''Try not to kill him while we're gone.'' Emmett whispered.

Rosalie smiled softly and gently pushed him. Esme placed her hand on Carlisle's cheek and the two locked eyes, foreheads pressed together, silently communicating.

''Let's go.'' Carlisle said.

Emmett nodded and the two set off into the night.

* * *

AN- So yeah, that was chapter 2. I hope that you all...OMG, what is that?! (looks closer) It's a magical blue button. ''Submit Review?'' What does that mean? Hmm...it sounds like a good idea. Hey, you should all hit that button and let me know what it does. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	3. Packing

_Rosealyn: Sorry about taking so long here. This chapter's been done for a while but we haven't really had time to actually get it up, but it's up now, so no worries. :)_

_Enjoy. :)_

_Kim: So yeah, this is chapter three, enjoy it, have fun. Please, as always, review._

* * *

Edward decided to start packing the things in his room, so he put Isabella to sleep in one of their "guest rooms". They had never had an actual reason to use one before. He also figured she would be more comfortable in this room, as it had a bed. He had always thought this was a stupid detail that they had to keep up, but now he was grateful for it. He laid the child down in the bed and tucked the covers around her, making sure she was comfortable.  
"Isabella, I'm going to be right down the hall, ok? I'm going to be packing and I don't want to keep you up, so you're going to sleep in here, is that ok?" The little girl stared at him before reaching her arms out towards him. Edward sighed and sat down on the bed, cuddling her closer to him. She must not have noticed the way his muscles automatically tensed up, since she immediately smiled slightly and snuggled into his shirt. Within minutes she had fallen asleep. Being very careful, Edward moved her onto the bed and tucked the covers back around her before heading back to his room.  
He decided to pack at a humanly pace, wanting to have room to think, rather than focusing on moving quickly. What the hell were they going to do? Maybe everyone else was right, it wasn't right of them to take her away from the world she belonged in. She probably had family who would be looking for her and be worried about her. And everyone would always wonder what had happened to that little girl…  
But, on the other hand, they couldn't just leave her unprotected. And if they just let her move in with another family member or get adopted or go into foster care or whatever might happen to her, then he knows James would hunt her down and kill her. That would do no good to whatever family she end ed up with either, as he was certain James would kill them as well. Not to mention the dangers of some of those foster and adoption centers. Isabella could end up with some human family that's worse than even being found by James.  
Then there was the issue of Edward's family. Jasper and Alice had to move out because of this; Rosalie was mad at him; and now everyone had to be extra careful or else the child could get hurt. But that didn't mean that Edward was just going to abandon the girl. Even if they decided to just give her back to the humans that wouldn't stop Edward. He would just follow her everywhere she went to make sure she didn't get hurt; after finding her once, he wouldn't just let her go.  
Edward was so absorbed in packing up the books of his book shelves, he didn't notice his door open slightly and the small girl peaking into the room. He stiffened as he become suddenly aware of the throat-burning scent that had half-way entered his room. He turned around and glanced at the doorway. She let out a little squeal and ducked back, pulling the door with her. Edward just stared at the door and watched as it slowly opened again, to reveal the child trying to sneakily steal a glance into the room. He sighed and walked over to the doorway, kneeling in front of Isabella so he could talk to her.  
"Isabella," he started, trying to use a firm voice, but failing as he was also trying to contain his laughter, "What are you doing?"  
"I couwdn't sweep," she murmured, hugging her rabbit to her as if trying to hide behind it.  
"Why not?"  
"Nightmawes. Sweep hewe?"  
Edward just looked at her. He didn't want to keep her awake, but she looked so frightened and he didn't want to leave her alone and make her think he had abandoned her or something. So he picked her up, wincing internally at the warm contact, and transferred her back onto the couch she had been sleeping on earlier.  
"Now, Isabella, you need to go to sleep, ok? You need your rest."  
She nodded feebly and then rested her head on the pillow that was still there from earlier. He took the cd that he had been listening to out and switched it with the Debussy cd she had seemed to like earlier and then went back to packing. He didn't get very much done, however, since every five seconds he kept glancing over his shoulder at the little girl to make sure she was ok. She didn't stir once and slept until long after the sun had risen.

* * *

Edward was just moving to the cd's on his wall when a small noise alerted him to the child that was now awake. He set the stack of cd's he had picked up back onto the shelf and walked over to sit next to her on the couch. She immediately crawled over into his lap; this was beginning to become routine and, so, was becoming easier for him to handle. They just sat on the couch in silence for several minutes before Isabella squirmed to get down. He set her on her on the floor and she stood there, looking around her. Edward laughed again.  
"What are you doing now?"  
"No toys…" she said morosely. Of course not. What would Edward do with toys? Especially ones a two-year-old would be interested in. He made a mental note to buy her some as soon as possible. For now, though, he had no idea what to do. He looked down at the little girl to see her staring up at him expectedly. He sighed. What now?  
He racked his brain for anything in the house that might provide entertainment to a small child. The TV, maybe. If he put on the right show. But he could hear Rosalie watching it right now and knew she would throw a major hissy fit having anything to do with the child, so he tried to think of another option-he didn't need to scare the toddler like that. Finally, he came up with an idea.  
"Isabella, do you like to read?" her eyes lit up.  
"I wuv books!" she exclaimed.  
"Ok, I'll be right back." Edward dashed down to Carlisle's office, which contained pretty much every book known to man. He even had a collection of children's books-he would often take some with him into work for the kids he tended to. He grabbed _The Cat in the Hat _and ran back up to his room.  
She was still there, now sitting on the floor hugging her rabbit and staring absent-mindedly at one of the walls. As soon as Edward walked in she jumped up and ran over to him. He kneeled down again.  
"Isabella, I have to do some packing. I need you to sit her and read this quietly so I can get that done, ok?" She looked at him curiously, thinking.  
"Packing?" she finally asked, looking confused.  
"Yeah."  
"Why?"  
"Because we're moving."  
She got a look on her face of intense concentration and was quiet for several moments. Then her face smoothed out as she seemed to finally understand.  
"Edward's weaving?" she asked pitifully, looking up at him with tears shining in her bright eyes.  
"Yeah, my family and I have to leave…" Before he could finish the child launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his legs.  
"NO!" she exclaimed, "Edward no go! You pwomised!"  
Edward knelt down and gathered her in his arms.  
"Shh, shh, calm down," he rubbed her back soothingly, "I'm not going to leave you. You're coming with us."  
She pulled back to look at him.  
"Weally?"  
"Yes. I wouldn't just leave you here, Isabella."  
"Pwomise?" She looked at him pitifully again with those wide, innocent eyes.  
"I promise." He hugged her closer. "I won't ever leave you, Isabella."  
Edward held her for a long moment, rocking her back and forth until he remembered that he had packing to do. He set Isabella on the floor and handed the book to her.  
"Now, Isabella, you need to sit here and read quietly, ok?" She nodded and he turned back to his wall of cd's. He had just picked up the next stack of cd's when he heard a little voice.  
"Edward!" He set the cd's back down on the shelf and walked over to the girl.  
"What? What's wrong?"  
"What's that wowd?" she asked holding the book up and pointing to the first word on the page.  
"The." She smiled at him and went back to her book as he walked back over to the shelf.  
Edward had just placed the stack of cd's into the box he had brought up when she called him over again.  
"Yes?" he inquired politely.  
"That wowd," she said, pointing to the second word on the page.  
"Sun," Edward read and she nodded, smiling again. He stayed there for a few seconds, watching her as she stared back at him with a smile on her face, before turning back to the shelves.  
"Edward!" she called before he could even touch anymore cd's. He walked back over to her again. She merely pointed at the third word on the page.  
"Did. Anything else?"  
She looked up from her book quickly.  
"No," she stated simply and then was back to looking at the book. But he hadn't even made it to the other side of the room before she called him again.  
"Not." he blurted out before she could ask. The little girl broke out into a fit of giggles and Edward stared at her incredulously. It was hard to remain annoyed with her, however, when he heard her adorable, carefree giggle and he found himself smiling instead of scowling.  
"Isabella," he said after she had calmed down, "Do you know how to read?" She shook her head and he sighed-he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "Ok… Why don't you just look at the pictures for now, ok?"  
She nodded, smiling, and returned to the book, staring intently at each picture before turning the page. Edward watched her for a while, smiling, before attempting to pack the rest of his cd's. It took him much longer than it normally would've, since he decided to move at a human pace, so as not to frighten Isabella. So he was only a little over half-way through the shelves on his wall when he heard Esme come up the stairs.  
As soon as the door opened Isabella shot up from her place on the floor and ran to hide behind Edward. He turned his head to look at her and she stared up at him with fearful eyes, hugging the back of his legs.  
"What's wrong? It's just Esme." He picked her up and she immediately buried her face in his shirt, trying to hide from Esme. He shot an apologetic look over at her and she smiled and nodded. _I understand, Edward, the poor child must be scared half to death right now. I just came up to let you know that I made her some lunch._ "You made her lunch? Esme, I was going to just go get her some fast food, you didn't have to make anything."  
"I know, but I wanted to. I'm going to have to get used to cooking if she's going to be staying with us."  
"You do know how stereotypically 'house wife' you seem right now, right?" he joked with her and she laughed.  
"I know, but I can't help it. I never got to do this in my own time."  
She turned to leave and Edward followed her, hugging Isabella closer when her grip tightened on his shirt. Edward froze in the doorway of the dining room and stared at the table, which was filled with more food than the entire Cullen family could eat, let alone a small two-year-old.  
"Esme…What the hell?"  
"Well, I didn't know what she would like, so I made a bit of everything…" She shrugged. "And don't swear in front of the child."  
Edward sighed and, shaking his head, made his way toward the table. He couldn't think of a single stereotypical lunch food that was not on the table. There was macaroni and cheese, various types of soups and sandwiches, hot pockets, mini-pizzas, chicken nuggets, fish stix, soft pretzels, some salad, a plate of organized fruit, chips, crackers with cheese, cheez-its, goldfish, and some brownies and cookies. To drink there were different types of kool-aid, some lemonade, milk-white and chocolate- and some soda. Isabella had now peaked out from Edward's chest and was staring mesmerized at the food on the table.  
"Well, Isabella, what do you want?" Edward asked, setting her down on a chair. He realized that she couldn't see over the table then and picked her up, reseating her on his lap. She spent several minutes just staring at all the food. Finally, Edward just started to put a little of everything onto her plate and Esme poured a little of each drink into different cups.  
The next hour was of Bella trying, rejecting, and eating each of the foods Esme had created. They learned that the only soup she would even touch was chicken noodle; out of all the sandwiches she would eat the standard pb and j, bologna with cheese, and peanut butter with honey; she ate a little of the cheese pizza, but wouldn't touch the hot pockets and quickly abandoned it for mac and cheese; she also had some fruits and veggies, but wouldn't eat the veggies together as a salad; and she ate some chicken nuggets, fish stix, and a little bit of a soft pretzel. As for drinks, she drank some of the black cherry kool-aid, some lemonade, and guzzled most of the chocolate milk. She was so stuffed she had no room afterwards for any of the crackers or desserts.  
"Well, she can have some after dinner," Esme commented cheerfully, happy to have discovered several of the child's likes and dislikes.  
"Which I will be going out and getting for her from a fast food place, Esme. You don't have to be cooking all this stuff for her," Edward commented, supporting a now half-passed out Isabella, who was leaning her head against his chest with her eyes half opened.  
"But, if I don't cook things how will I find out what she'll like for dinner?"  
"You can experiment some other time, you've already worked enough for today."  
Isabella yawned widely and snuggled closer to Edward, her eyes completely shut now. Esme looked down at her and smiled.  
"All right, fine. I'll just clean up here and then go back to designing her bedroom. It's going to look so cute, I can't wait to go shopping with Alice for the furniture. I asked Rosalie if she wanted to come, but she just gave me that look." Edward opened his mouth to protest Esme spending even more work on the child he had brought on them, but she cut him off. "I don't mind, Edward, you know how much I love this design stuff."  
"But you don't even know what her room will look like in New York."  
"So? I can get a basic idea, can't I? Now get that girl upstairs and in bed, she looks like she could use a nap."  
He decided against arguing and carried Isabella back up to his room.

* * *

With Isabella asleep Edward was able to finish packing much more quickly. Emmett and Carlisle had returned with the news that James had returned to the Swan residence shortly after Edward had left. He had followed Edward and Isabella's scent to the Cullen house and, after assessing the situation, had fled to a place far off from the Cullen house, presumably to figure out what he was going to do. They had also come home with a moving truck, which everyone was currently filling with boxes and furniture as quickly as possible, wanting to leave before James could reach a decision or come up with a plan. He was just about to head back up the stairs for his last set of boxes when the TV caught his attention. It was a news report about the murders of Chief Swan and his wife, and how their young daughter was still missing.  
"…the most recent deaths in the most brutal string of murders to occur on the Olympic Peninsula in decades. Their young daughter, Isabella," As she spoke a picture of the young girl appeared on the screen. "Is still missing and a search party is being sent out to find the girl's whereabouts. If anyone has any information pertaining to this case, you're advised to call the local police at…" The anchorwoman finished up the segment and then moved on to an interview with the Officer in charge of the investigation. The reporter asked if they were making any advancements and what his thoughts were on the latest developments.  
''We're not sure if this is the same murderer. This time, a little girl was kidnapped, which has never happened in the other cases. The killer has always murdered every occupant in the house. This could be a copy-cat killer. We hope to find out soon.''  
"Do you believe that you will be able to find the girl?" the reporter asked and Edward wanted to punch her. You could tell she didn't really care about the case at all, she just wanted to be able to report an interesting story.  
"We're hopeful about it, but we're not entirely sure. We have people searching the surrounding woods by the house she was abducted from and all surrounding areas. We're hoping to find her alive, but with this killer the odds aren't very good."  
"What are you planning on doing with the child if you find her?"  
"We're trying to track down some family members to take her in, but it's proven to be tough. Chief Swan's parents died several years ago, as did his wife's, they both have no siblings, either, so we're attempting to track down a cousin…"  
Edward shut the TV off and turned to leave, finding the rest of his family standing in the doorway.  
"See?" Rosalie started before anyone else could react, "Edward, people are looking for her. She has to go."  
"Rose…" Emmett warned, but it was too late, she was already in "argumentative bitch" mode.  
"Go where, Rosalie?" he argued, "Did you hear that police officer just now? She has nowhere else to go, she has no family."  
"That's not our problem! We should give her back and let them deal with her!"  
"Why? So she can be put into some foster home with psycho parents or something?"  
"You are so melodramatic, she has a better chance of living a normal life in a foster home than with us."  
"Calm down…" Carlisle intervened, but the two ignored him.  
"And what about James, Rosalie? How many times do I have to repeat the fact that he'll kill her?"  
"He's gone now, he probably just decided that she's not worth it and he left. No big deal."  
"There's no such thing as 'no big deal' to him, Rose, he won't stop until she's dead and I'm not stepping aside and giving him a clear path."  
She opened her mouth to respond, but was distracted by a small sobbing noise from upstairs. They all turned in the direction it came from and stood frozen. Isabella had woken up. Before anyone else had a chance to react Edward had bolted up the stairs to see what was wrong.

* * *

The first thing Isabella noticed about her surroundings when she woke up was that they were very different from the ones she fell asleep to. She sat up and looked around. This wasn't the room she was left in, it was so… empty… There wasn't anything here. She looked closer and realized she was wrong. This was the room she was left in, but it was different. Everything was gone. Where were the books? The thing that played music? The blankets that hung on the walls? And all those disk-thingies that had completely covered the wall opposite her? All that was left was the couch she had fallen asleep on and the blanket that covered her.  
She stumbled off the couch and headed toward the door, determined to find out what was going on. As she walked down the hallway she noticed how empty it was as well. There wasn't a single picture or piece of furniture or anything anywhere. Then it hit her…They were gone. They had packed everything up while she was asleep and left without her. Now she was completely alone. She sat down on the floor where she was and pulled Bun-bun closer to her; he was now all she had. Then she started crying.

* * *

Edward ran up to his room and froze. The door was open and he knew Isabella wasn't inside. He stood still for a moment, listening for which direction her sobs were coming from and took off down the hall, following her scent. He found her in one of the empty rooms near the end of the hallway. She was sitting on the ground, holding her stuffed rabbit to herself and crying.  
"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" Edward knelt to the floor and gathered the child in his arms. It took her a few seconds before she realized what was going on and then she threw her arms around his neck and clung onto him with all her strength, crying. It only took Edward several seconds to calm himself down from the sudden contact, "Shh, shh. It's ok, it's ok. What's the matter? Were you scared to wake up alone?" She nodded minutely. "Well, I'm sorry, I won't leave you alone like that again."  
"I thought you moved…"  
"What? Without you? Of course not. I was just putting the boxes and things into the moving van. Now, stop crying, it's a heartbreaking thing to watch." He wiped the tears gently off her cheeks and they sat still for a few minutes as she calmed down.  
"Edward?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Can Mommy and Daddy come?'  
Edward froze, not sure what to say.  
"Isabella… I'm sorry, but they can't… They're…. not around anymore…"  
"Did the man with the wed eyes get them?"  
He stared down at her in shock. How much had she seen the night before?  
"Isabella, what happened last night?"  
"A woud cwash. I went to Mommy and Daddy's woom and Mommy came wunning out. Thewe was a man in the woom wif Daddy. He had wed eyes, but then Mommy picked me upand we wan outside. Then she towd me to wun and she wan back into the house… They'we not coming back, awe they?"  
"No, Isabella… I'm so sorry." He hugged her closer as she started crying again.  
"But you'we hewe," she commented.  
"Yes."  
"You won't weave?"  
"No, Isabella, never. Not as long as being here is what's best for you."  
She nodded, appeased, and leaned her head against his chest, closing her eyes. Edward sighed and held her closer, hoping that this was what was best for her.

* * *

_Aaaaaand there's chapter three. Hope you enjoyed. Just as a warning, I might not update my chapters as quickly (I have no idea about Kim's, though) because I'm going to be doing National Novel Writing Month. I also have my actual fic that I write to work on, so that's a lot of writing. I apologize for any extended waiting periods you guys may have to go through during November._


	4. Are We There Yet?

_AN- Hey everybody, we're back! Sorry about that whole not updating for a long time, but we were trying to concentrate on chapter 5 before posting chapter 4. This one was written by me Kim! So, it's going to be amazing. I'm gonna give this AN over to Rose and hopefully you'll like this chapter._

_Hello, sorry for the delay. I've been having writer's block with the next chapter (And my other fanfic and my NaNoWriMo novel. This is not a good month for me...) and for some odd reason it never occurred to me that this is the reason why we have a full chapter before posting-in the event of writer's block. So here's the chapter Kim wrote._

_Enjoy. :)  
_

* * *

The Cullen house was in a slight uproar. It's not everyday the entire family has to move out of the blue, unknowing if James would show up unexpectedly. Edward had finished packing up his room and was concentrating on keeping Isabella entertained until they left.

''Edward. I'm bowed.'' Isabella whined.

Edward was sitting in the living room, Isabella situated happily on his lap. She'd been silent for the past twenty minutes, so, of course, she chose now to speak. She was almost past her time.

"I'm sorry, Isabella. Why don't you watch some T.V.?'' he asked.

"Toys.'' she demanded.

He sighed. "We don't have any toys for you right now.''

Isabella crossed her arms over her chest and began to pout. Emmett, who had been sitting next to his brother, chuckled.

"Hey…she looks like Rose!''

They heard a low snarl and Rosalie swept gracefully out of her chair, glaring at Emmett. Edward caught the gist of her thoughts and winced.

"I'm going to pay, aren't I?'' Emmett asked.

Edward chuckled. "Oh, yeah.''

"Edward.'' Isabella began to complain again.

Edward sighed. "Alright, where's that stupid rabbit?''

Isabella went from pouting to glaring at Edward. He glanced at her confused, while Emmett chuckled again.

"What's the matter, Shrimp?'' Emmett asked.

"Name is Bun-bun.'' she said, still glaring at Edward.

He hid a chuckle and nodded. "Of course. How could I not know that.''

She nodded smugly. "Say it right.''

"Where's Bun-bun?'' Edward asked, all the while hearing Emmett's thoughts. _Man, he is so whipped_.

Edward scowled. "Why don't you go try and butter up Rose?''

Esme now walked into the living room and shot the boys a warning look. It was then, they heard a knock on the door. Carlisle was out of his study and down the stairs before they could blink….if, you know, vampires had to blink.

He glanced out the window, then looked meaningfully at Edward. Without a sound, Edward scooped Isabella up and jetted upstairs. Carlisle waited, then opened the door to the two police men standing outside.

* * *

"Edward, what's wong?'' Isabella asked.

The two of them were hiding in Edward's now empty room. She had tried to leave the room once already, so he was stuck keeping her in his lap. It had been getting easier to resist her scent. She'd been around him so much since he brought her home, he'd slowly been getting use to the smell.

"Nothing, Isabella. But we must be very quiet.''

"Why?''

"Because.''

"Because why?''

He sighed. "Isabella, be quiet.''

"You fowgot ta say pwease.'' she reminded him.

A small grin tugged at his mouth and he sighed.

"Isabella, please be quiet.''

"Why?''

"Because….if you're not quiet…those men downstairs might take you away.''

Fear appeared in her small eyes before she snuggled closer. "Me no go.''

"No, Isabella,'' he whispered, holding her closely, "You won't go.''

* * *

"May I help you, Officers?'' Carlisle asked, his tone pleasant.

"Mr. Cullen, I'm Officer Potter.'' one of them said, tipping his hat. "This is my partner, Officer Witter.''

The other officer smiled wanly.

"May I help you?'' Carlisle asked, yet again.

"I'm sure you've heard by now about the unfortunate incident involving the Swan family." He paused here, just now noticing the many boxes stacked around the room.

"Yes. Very unfortunate indeed.''

"In a hurry to leave town?'' Officer Potter asked.

"Yes, we are.'' Carlisle said, smiling now. ''The Swan family, though very tragic, is not the only family in trouble. A cousin of mine has fallen gravely ill, they're afraid he hasn't much time left. I'd very much like to be at his beside when the time comes.''

"So, you need to pack up and leave?'' Officer Witter asked, his tone suspicious.

"He has mentioned once or twice that he's be leaving the home to me,'' Carlisle stated, "I might as well pack up now.''

Officer Witter narrowed his eyes. "Not very considerate of your cousin, are you?''

Carlisle fixed his eyes upon Officer Witter. ''Well, not only is the home ready and furnished for us, but, the unfortunate incident you mentioned earlier is the very reason I wish to leave this small town. How is anyone safe with a homicidal maniac on the loose?''

Officer Potter smiled. "I'm sorry for the intrusion Dr. Cullen. Come on, John.''

Officer Witter glanced at Carlisle again before following his partner out to the car. Carlisle closed the door and sighed.

"That was close.'' he murmured.

"Too close.'' Rosalie snarled, appearing from the kitchen.

Emmett sighed. "Rose, just let it go.''

She glared at him, then whisked around and went back into the kitchen. Esme watched her go sadly, then headed upstairs.

* * *

''Edward?'' Esme asked as she peaked into his room.

Isabella watched her enter, then hid her head shyly in Edward's chest.

''Yes, Esme?''

''The officers are gone. Carlisle managed to make our leave of absence un-suspicious.''

''Good.'' Edward murmured, standing up with Isabella in his arms.

''How is Isabella?''

''She's quite alright. Still a little on the shy side.'' he said.

Esme smiled softly. ''Not with you.''

As her breathing evened out, they both realized she had fallen asleep. ''Yes, it's odd isn't it? I am the most dangerous to her out of all of us, yet I am the one she is most comfortable with.''

* * *

It was go time. After giving Isabella a quick bath and a change of clothes, the Cullens were ready to ride!

Rosalie and Emmett had decided to take her car on the ride to New York. She hadn't wanted to ride anywhere near Bella.

Carlisle and Esme were taking the moving van. Edward was bringing Isabella in his Volvo. He was a little worried about her safety in the small, easily destructable car. Carisle had to work hard to convince him she would be safe and sound during the entire trip. He even went as far as to run to a nearby baby store and "steal" a car seat, leaving the desired money on the cash register.

Now, Edward was placing Isabella inside the carrier, her Bun-bun wrapped tightly in her arms.

''Does that feel comfortable?'' Edward asked.

Isabella nodded. ''You'll sit with me?''

He smiled. ''Of course I will. Right in front of you.''

She smiled happily and snuggled Bun-bun closer. Esme walked up behind Edward and smiled at Isabella, trying to keep her voice as soft as possible. ''Are you excited for the trip, Isabella?''

Isabella shyly ducked her head, but Edward caught the smallest of nods.

''You bet she is. Have you ever heard of New York?'' Edward asked.

Carlisle walked towards the moving van, parked right next to the Volvo and chuckled, overhearing Edward's words, as Isabella shook her head.

''She's only two year old, Edward. Of course she hasn't.'' Carlisle commented as he climbed in and started the car. Esme hurried over to the moving van. Edward closed the door of the Volvo and climbed into the driver's side.

Isabella giggled and Edward grinned. ''You find that funny?''

''Yes.''

It was Edward's turn to chuckle as he started the car. He watched the moving van go, then followed.

''What's New Yowk?''

''It's a place a long way away from here. There are giants stores, and-''

''Toy stowes?''

''Yes Isabella, there are toy stores. There are museums and parks. Central Park is huge!'' he said, emphasizing to entertain her.

''Whewe we wive?''

''Probably in a nice home. You'll have your very own room. Esme's going to decorate it. Doesn't it sound nice?'' Edward asked.

Isabella nodded and gave a tiny yawn.

''You sleep a lot.'' Edward commented.

''I sweepy.'' she murmured in a quiet voice as her eyelids slid close.

* * *

About two hours later, Isabella opened her eyes and could see the sun outside her window. But, something about this was confusing to her.

''Edward?''

He glanced at her through the rearview mirror. ''Good morning, Isabella.''

''Why day so dawk?'' she asked.

''What do you mean?''

She pointed out the window. "Sun… but stiw dawk.''

Edward glanced at the window and recognition dawned. ''Isabella, the windows are tinted.''

''Bad windows?'' she asked.

''No tinted, not tainted. They're darkened.'' she just gave him a confused look. ''You know how blinds keep the light out of your room? Even when it's daytime?''

She nodded.

''Well, that's what tinted windows do for cars. It's keeps the sun outside, not in.'' he explained.

"Why they hewe?'' Isabella asked.

''The sun is...bad for our family, Isabella.'' Edward said, carefully.

''Bad fow me?''

''No, sun is very good for you.'' he assured her.

''Why bad fow you?''

He sighed, getting slightly disgruntled. ''It's complicated, Isabella. I'll explain when you're older.''

''Ok.'' she said, cheerfully.

Edward sighed. ''You're very observent for a two-year old.''

Isabella merely smiled as Edward began to flip through the radio stations.

''Alright all you little ones out there, welcome back to 7.810, your station for non-stop kids rock! Next on our play list is the one and only, Puff the Magic Dragon.''

Isabella's eyes widened and Edward noticed. He cranked up the volume, thinking she was excited.

_Puff the Magic Dragon, lived by the sea....._

''No! No, no, no! Off! Tuwn off!'' Isabella wailed, covering her ears with her hands.

He quickly turned off the radio, feeling guilty.

''What's wrong?'' he asked.

''Sad song. Sad song.'' she said, tearfully.

Edward sighed in relief. ''Alright, we won't listen to it any longer.''

She smiled radiantly at him. ''Thank you.''

* * *

The day passed quickly and soon, twilight came. Isabella had been sleeping on and off throughout the whole trip, but now she was wide awake, crying Edward's name.

''What's wrong, Isabella?''

''I gots to potty.'' she whispered softly.

Edward nodded and pulled into a rest stop. The second the car stopped, the phone rang.

''Hello Carlisle.....no, we had to stop....she has to use the restroom....yes, go on without us. We'll meet you there. Goodbye.''

He snapped the phone closed, and sighed. Edward unbuckled Isabella and they left the car, heading towards the rest area. He set her down and nodded towards the woman's room.

''Go on.'' he said.

Isabella glanced at the door and shook her head. ''No go awone. Edward come too.''

''Isabella, it's a girl's room. I cannot-''

''Pwease?'' she asked, flashing her big brown eyes at him.

Edward sighed and took her hand. ''Fine. But you're going in the stall yourself.''

* * *

Edward leaned against the wall, waiting for Isabella. An older woman walked in and glanced at him.

''Am I in the right room?'' she asked.

Edward surmised her accent. She was from England. ''Yes, I'm waiting for my....little sister.''

The woman nodded and waited as well, considering the other stalls were full.

''Do you miss home?'' he asked.

''How did you know?'' she asked.

''The accent. It's obvious.''

''Right.'' she laughed. ''I'll be leaving to good old England tomorrow. Can't wait to be home.''

They heard a toilet flush and Isabella walked out. She smiled brightly at Edward and headed to the sink. She glanced at the counter high above her head, then turned around to look pointedly at Edward. He sighed and went to pick her up.

''She's adorable. What's her name?'' the lady asked.

''It's....Bella.'' he said, thinking quickly. ''Short for Bellatrix.''

''A strange name.'' the lady mused softly.

''Yes, well our mother was a drunk.'' Edward explained, concocting a story off the top of his head. They'd need one once they got to New York, but this one would do for now.

''Little Bella and I were adopted by our cousin, Sirius.'' he thought of the dog star for that one. It was clever.

By now Isabella had finished washing her hands and was drying them with paper towel.

''It was a pleasure meeting you.'' Edward said, desperate to get the child out before they were discovered.

''Bye!'' Isabella called as Edward led her out of the room.

''Such odd names.'' the lady mused softly.

* * *

Edward led Isabella back to the car and strapped her into her seat. He took off as fast as he could.

''Edward. Why call me Bella?''

''We need a new name for you, Isabella.'' Edward explained. ''If people recognize you, you could go away.''

She was silent for a moment. ''I like Bella.''

''Shall we call you, Bella now?'' Edward asked.

She nodded vigorously and he chuckled.

''Alright, Bella. Get ready for a long car ride.''

''Ok, Edward.'' Bella said, happily.

* * *

They drove for more hours. Bella seemed to have enough of sleeping. She'd bombarded Edward with questions about the family.

''Why Awice gone?''

''Why Rose hate?''

''Why Emmett big?''

Edward chuckled. ''How do you know all their names?''

''I heaw you say.''

''Alice, you'll see her again in New York. She's looking forward to getting to know you. As for Rose, don't worry. She'll come around.''

Bella smiled, content with his answers. ''Awe we thewe yet?''

''No, a few more hours.''

''Okay.''

A few minutes later, Edward was concentrating on the signs when he heard Bella's voice again. ''Awe we thewe yet?''

''A few more hours.''

Bella frowned but remained quiet. A few more minutes passed before she spoke again.

''Awe we therwe yet?!''

''Bella, it's only been ten minutes.''

''How many mowe minutes?''

''About one hundred.'' Edward said, exasperatedly.

Her eyes grew wide. ''That's long.''

''Yes it is. So please, Isabella, hush for a while.''

''Okay.'' she replied cheerfully.

He shook his head. It was impossible to be angry with the small child in the back seat, she had a kind of power over him. Maybe Emmett was right, maybe he was whipped. He chuckled to himself. Whipped by a two-year old. How pathetic.

''Edward?'' Bella asked.

''Yes?''

''Awe we thewe yet?''

* * *

A few hours later, they arrived. The New York sky line seemed to call out to them. Edward carefully read over the directions and made his way toward their Penthouse. Bella was working hard to keep her eyes open. There were so many interesting sights to see here. Bright lights were everywhere, and millions of people were walking the streets.

Edward made the final turn down their new block, and parked the car on the curb. The moving van was just leaving. They'd drop it off at a New York office, so it could be used if someone just has to move to Forks, or somewhere else. He got out of the car and opened the back door, gently taking Bella out of her seat.

''We're home, Bella.'' he whispered softly.

She nestled against him and smiled softly. ''Home.''

Then, her eyelids gently fell and she was asleep

* * *

_AN-Hey, if you enjoyed this chapter, let us know. Thanks for reading and have a nice day!_


	5. Toys!

_Kim: Hey everyone! We're back! This chapter is adorable, and I'm not just saying that because I'm the co-author. Hope you enjoy!_

_Rosealyn: Hello, everyone. I'm sorry about the long wait for this chapter, but I had some fierce writer's block that wouldn't go away. You would not _believe_ how much dynamite I had to use to blow it up. :p Anyway, I have a disclaimer here: I know that this story takes place sometime in the early 90's, but I have no idea how the Toys R Us store would look back then (or now, really, so I'm sorry if I messed up its layout) or what kinds of toys would be there, so I tried to go with generic ones. I'm sorry for anything incorrect or inaccurate._

_Enjoy. :)  
_

* * *

Bella needed toys. Badly. Edward had attempted to entertain her with little substitutes in the beginning-just at least until they had gotten unpacked. But after the sock puppet fiasco (He had, apparently, used some of Rosalie's best socks and she flipped on him-who knew she could throw such a tantrum over socks?) and the fear-of-dust-rags thing, Edward came to the conclusion that Bella was going to need some real toys. And fast.

* * *

"Hey, Esme, do you think you guys can finish unpacking without me?" he asked, walking into the only room that remained completely bare. It was Bella's room and Esme was currently setting tarps down on the floor so she could pain the walls and ceilings-Alice was coming up to help after she and Jasper finished unpacking in their home.

They had currently moved into a building that housed three penthouses, one on top of the other. Esme had reconstructed the bottom one into a combination garage/basement to house their multiple cars and store anything that wasn't needed in their living space. The other two penthouses were left as they were, but she changed things around a bit-adding some more stairs and doors to transform the two two-story penthouses into one four-story one.

Alice and Jasper had moved into the bottom two floors and were living there as if the building had been split back into two penthouses. They no longer used the extra stairs and doors and instead, if someone wished to go from one penthouse to the other, would use the regular set of stairs (or the elevator) and have to use the main front door.

"Why, where are you going?" she responded as she spread another tarp down. Edward helped her spread it out evenly and lay it on the floor.

"I decided Bella really needs some real toys to play with, so I'm going to take her to the toy store to buy her some." Esme's eyes got really big for half a second before she composed her look.

"Let me get this straight, you're going to take a two-year-old into a toy store?" she asked slowly.

"Yes."

She stifled a laugh.

"Well… have fun with that, dear…"

Edward didn't quite understand what she found amusing about the situation, so he just shrugged to himself and left the room, heading for his bedroom, which was right across the hall.

He walked into his room, which was filled with many half-unpacked boxes, and glanced around, not seeing Bella. She was there. He knew she was; he would hear her. Which meant she must be hiding from him. He stood there for a few more seconds and, sure enough, he heard a small giggle from behind a pile of boxes in the back corner of the room.

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed in mock-surprise, "Where has Bella disappeared to?" Her giggling got louder and Edward slowly stalked his way toward the boxes. "Could…She…Be…" He was right in front of the boxes now. "Here?!" he exclaimed and jumped behind the boxes, scooping the toddler into his arms. She let out a slight shriek and then broke down into a fit of giggles. Edward held her and rocked her back and forth while she calmed down. It was definitely getting much, much easier to get used to this girl. Finally, she stopped giggling and looked at Edward expectantly.

"Bella, would you like to go on a short trip?"

Her eyes lit up at the mentioning of going on a "short trip".

"Whewe?"

"It's a surprise."

She crossed her little arms as she seemed to think it over.

"Ok," she finally said.

* * *

"Wook now?" Bella asked from the backseat, where Edward had told her to cover her eyes.

"Not yet." He found a place to park the car and then got out, lifting the child from her carseat.

"Now?"

"No, not yet."

He made his way toward the entrance to the store, trying to maneuver his way through the crowds without dropping Bella.

"Now?" she asked just as he had reached the store.

"Yep, you can look now."

She uncovered her eyes and they immediately expanded to the size of dinner plates. She let out a squeal of happiness and pointed at the store.  
"Toys!" she exclaimed, as if Edward hadn't been aware of where, exactly, he had taken her.

"Yep, we're going to go get you some toys." He hadn't even finished his sentence before Bella was squirming to get down. He set her on the ground inside the store and she immediately ran over to the stuffed animals section of the store. Edward grabbed a shopping cart and quickly followed her, not wanting to lose her.

"Want dis!" she exclaimed, holding up a stuffed dog and she shoved it into the cart before darting over to the other side of the aisle.

"Want dis!" she exclaimed again and a stuffed frog joined the dog in the cart.

And, so, they went on like that for a while. Bella darting through the aisles of the stuffed animal section with Edward pushing the cart behind her.

"Want dis! In went a stuffed turtle.

"Want dis!" A kitten.

"Want dis!" A fish

"Want dis!" A spider monkey beanie.

"Want dis!" A penguin.

They had almost reached the end of the last aisle when she looked up to the top shelf and her eyes got big with wonder.

"Edward…" she said, drawing the name out, like she wanted to make absolute sure he heard what she had said.

"Yes, Bella?" he asked politely.

"Want dat!" she exclaimed as she pointed to a giant teddy bear that was probably over half Edward's size that was on the top shelf. **(A/N: Don't ask me who's bright idea it was to put a ginormous teddy bear on the top shelf, they just did. Just read it and enjoy…. :p)**

Edward looked up and down the aisle to see if anyone was coming. He didn't see anyone, and the nearest person eh could hear was three aisles over. He glanced at the security camera. If he stood at a certain angle by the shelf, he would be out of it's video range. He looked back at Bella, who was staring at him curiously, and he put his finger to his lips to let her know to be quiet. She smiled conspiratorially, knowing he was up to something, and mimicked him. He suppressed a chuckle and winked at her before leaping up , grabbing the teddy bear off the twenty-foot shelf and lending in front of Bella, handing it to her.

Bella's mouth was hanging wide open from the gasp she had let out as Edward had jumped and she clapped.

"Do again, Edward!" she squealed.

"Shh, I can't. Someone might see."

"Why can no one see?"

"I'll explain it to you later. But, if people knew I was…different, then that would be bad, and you might have to go away. So, don't tell anyone, ok?"

"Ok." She nodded, her arms wrapped as far around the giant teddy bear as was possible. Edward smiled and picked the teddy bear up.

"Let's put him in here, ok?" he asked, placing it in the cart, which was now full of stuffed animals.

"Bella, how are we going to get any other toys? You've filled the cart up with stuffed animals."

"I dunno," she giggled.

"You think this is funny?" he asked in a mock-serous tone.

"I dunno," she giggled harder.

Edward sighed and began walking back toward the front of the store. **(A/N: SAT prep time for you high schoolers! "Edward [He] sighed" is to WeKnowFanFiction, as "Chagrin" is to _____ (Or, I suppose you could also replace "chagrin" with something to do with a mouth being pressed into a hard line :p)) **He walked over to the empty register. The girl standing behind the counter's eyes popped open as she saw the mountain of stuffed animals in the cart _Just wait until we go through the rest of the _store Edward couldn't help but think.

"Excuse me." The girl finally looked away from the mountain of toys and at Edward-which didn't help much considering her brain then fizzled out for several seconds. Edward gave her some time to gather her thoughts before adopting his most politely persuasive voice. "Do you have somewhere that I could put this cart while I take my sister through the rest of the store?"

"Uh… Why do you need to put it somewhere?" _Oh, my _God_, he is gorgeous! And does he seriously plan on buying all of those stuffed animals?_

"Because it's kind of hard to push two carts around and there's no way I'm fitting anything else into this one." He smiled at her and her brain fizzled again.

"Uh….Yeah…Y-you can put it back there…" She gestured to an empty space near the check out counters set away from the main part of the store.

"Thank you."

* * *

"Dis!"-Bella put a Mr. Potato head in the cart-"Dis!"-She put in a Pound Puppies set-"Dis!"-art kit-"Dis!"-Thomas the Tank Engine… And on and on. It seemed like almost everything the girl saw, she wanted. Of course. She was two. Edward was supposed to be the responsible adult here and tell her "No" every once in a while. But he couldn't. She looked so happy and excited and since she had no toys at all, he figured he should buy her a lot. They had filled up another two carts before they had even been around half the store. Although, he wasn't sure how he was going to fit the entire store into his car…

Edward was just standing in the middle of one of the aisles, thinking this over and wondering which member of his family it would be a better idea to call, when Bella called out to him.

"Catch!" she shouted and threw one of those bouncy balls at him. It took Edward by surprise and, so, he didn't do the proper thing to do-which would be to just move out of the way-and, instead, swatted at the ball to stop it from hitting him. He hadn't hit it hard, but that didn't stop it from rocketing into one of the shelves, knocking over all the toys on the shelf the ball had hit and completely deflating the ball. Bella stood there with her eyes wide and then walked over to the shelf. She reached up to it and pulled out the deflated ball.

"Wow…Edward's strong" she marveled.

"Yeah, now let's put this back and not throw things at me anymore, ok?" he said quickly as he removed the ball from her hands and placed it back on the shelf, trying to remove her from the scene before someone came running and busted them. He picked her up and returned to the shopping cart, heading to the next aisle as if nothing had happened.

* * *

A couple of minutes later, Bella noticed a large space set up near one of the aisles. Her eyes lit up and just as Edward was about to as what was up, she took off running for it. He took of running after her and was about to scold her for running off when he saw where, exactly, she had been running to. Blocks. They had a whole little section set up in the middle of the store that had tons of blocks in it. There were some opened and scattered around for kids to play with and Bella went immediately to a pile and begin stacking them on top of each other.

"Edward, buiwd!" she called to him and he pushed his cart off to the side of the carpeting before sitting in front of Bella and helping her stack the blocks. They played for an hour, until Bella had retrieved every block from the play space and they had made a one-room castle of blocks big enough for Bella to walk into. She clapped her hands in delight once they had finished and walked inside. Edward chuckled at how happy a simple tower of blocks made her. Once she was inside she turned and gestured with her hand for Edward to join her.

"I don't think I'll fit, Bella."

"Pwease?"

"Bella, if I come in there, it'll fall over."

She crossed her arms in anger and turned around so her back would be facing Edward. Or at least, she would've, had she not stumbled over her feet and fallen forward into the side wall of the castle. Immediately, all the blocks showered down on top of her. Well, her and Edward, since the second he saw her fall he dove on top of her to stop the blocks from hitting her.

Once the debris had cleared, Edward straightened up, knocking the blocks back so they wouldn't fall down on Bella.

"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously, checking her over to make sure she hadn't been hit. She looked down at the blocks with a saddened expression that deepened by the second. Then she burst into tears. "Bella! What's wrong? Where are you hurt?"

"The Castwe feww down!" she exclaimed once she had finally stopped hysterics long enough to talk. Edward almost laughed out loud with relief. She was fine, nothing had hurt her. She was just upset about knocking over the castle.

"Tell you what, how about I buy you a bunch of blocks and you and I can build a better one when we get home. Does that sound ok?"

She thought this over for a moment before smiling hugely and nodding.

"Ok, then let's go. We've still got a lot of store to cover…"

* * *

"Swings!" They had reached the very back of the store, which had a bunch of outside playsets on display. Bella ran to one of the swings and climbed on. Then she looked back at Edward. "Push me!"

"Bella, I don't think we're allowed to play on these…"

"Pwease?" She flashed her Bambi eyes at him. Looks like she had caught onto how to get her way with Edward…

"Fine, but if we get in trouble for this, you take the heat, ok?"

"Ok," she replied cheerfully and she grabbed onto the chains.

Edward pulled the swing back carefully and let go. She went forward a little bit and when she game back he barely tapped her back, not wanting to hurt her. Despite this, she still went flying forward and soon was going as high as the swing would allow her. Bella seemed to love the thrill of going so high and so fast on the swing, she kept letting out shrieking giggles and begging Edward to push her higher. After a while, though, Edward convinced her to get off the swing so they could cover the rest of the store.

But, the second she got off the swing she ran over to the slide and climbed up to the top. She slid down with her hands up, like she was on a rollercoaster, and Edward rushed to the bottom to catch her. He caught her and swung her up into the air, tossing her up slightly before catching her, all the while she was laughing hysterically.

"Again!" she declared once she had calmed down and he set her down so she could climb the slide again.

They played on the mini jungle gyms for over an hour until Bella seemed to be getting tired. Edward picked her up and she yawned widely, laying her head against his shoulder.

Edward decided they had done enough shopping for the day and pushed the cart (Their seventh one) toward the checkout counter, wishing they had had a backyard. He really would've liked to have bought one of those playsets for Bella.

* * *

Edward had ended up having to call home to get someone to come help him take all the toys home. Esme was still finishing up Bella's room, Carlisle was at work, Jasper probably wasn't such a good idea, Alice would've probably wanted to go through the whole toy store again, having never had a reason to look at toys before, and there was no way in Hell Rosalie would come, so that meant Emmett drove up to the curb of the Toys R Us in his jeep about ten minutes after the store people had managed to bag everything Edward had bought. They were all still stunned someone had bought so many toys.

"We just lost our home in a fire and I'm trying to refurbish my sister's toy supply. She was left with only her old stuffed rabbit," he had explained and everyone had felt so sorry for the poor toy depriven (before today) girl that no one questioned the story.

"Holy shit," Emmett laughed as he climbed out of the jeep, "Edward, did you leave any toys in the store for the other kids? You know, it's ok to say 'no' to that girl every once in a while."

"Just put the toys in the jeep, Emmett. I'm going to go take Bella to my car and drive it around." Emmett nodded to show he understood and went to grab some bags, shaking his head.

"That boy is _so_ whipped…" he laughed to himself.

* * *

They piled all the bags of toys in Edward's room while the paint in Bella's room dried. Esme also wanted to buy furniture for the room before they moved the toys in. She refused to let Edward see the room since "It's not completely done" and would quickly think of other things whenever she was around him. "I want it to be a surprise for Bella and Lord knows she can get anything out of you far too easily," she had explained. As if knowing what her room looked like was at the top of the two-year-old's list. Right now, it looked like the thing at the top of her list was sleep. Her eyes were half-closed by the time they had finished carrying everything in.

"You tired?" he asked unnecessarily-she looked about ready to pass out. She nodded feebly and lifted her arms up to show she wanted him to carry her. He laughed and picked her up, taking her to his room. He laid hr down on his couch and draped a blanket around her.

"Did you have a fun day?" he asked as he tucked her in.  
"Yeah. Thank you," she said with as much excitement as her fatigue would allow, "We go back tomowwow?"

"No, Bella, we can't go back tomorrow. But, we can play with all the toys we did buy today."

She smiled at that and clapped her hands slightly. Edward smiled.

"But for now, you should sleep, ok?" She nodded her head and he leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Good night, Angel."

"Good night, Edward," she sighed, cuddling her bunny.

* * *

_Well, there's chapter five. We'll try to get chapter six up soon. Also, a lot of people have been making comments, asking when it will flash forward into the future, to when Bella is a teen. That's not going to happen for a while. This story is about the Cullens raising Bella (Note: Title. :p) so she's going to remain a small child for a while. It'll start out pretty slowly just with the first year-ish, but then we'll start skipping years to bigger moments and such. Also, we're not going to be seeing James for a while, either. Remember, they moved to the other side of the country.  
_


	6. Shopping

Rosealyn:_ Here's chapter six. I know it took a while, but it's REALLY long, so I hope that makes up for it. :p Also, I wrote shopping-Alice in this one. I absolutely hate the way most people write Alice, because she's only focused on shopping (Like, only. She doesn't care about anything or anyone else.) So, Kim and I will be trying to write her differently and add more aspects to her character. However, since the whole premise of this chapter is shopping, I had to include shopping-Alice, so I tried to writer her differently and more considerate. I hope it came out right and you all don't want to wring her neck like I often do when reading shopping-Alice. :p  
_

_Enjoy. :)_

* * *

"I don't believe it," Esme commented, watching Bella with her hands on her hips, "I make all this food and she prefers the cereal."

"I told you you didn't have to bother with all the work, Esme," Edward told her, trying to hide a smile. Esme sighed.

"I guess you're right. It's nice to know now, though…" She walked over to the sink and began washing out the dishes she had used to make pancakes, muffins, bacon, eggs (scrambled and fried) waffles, French toast, regular toast, and chopped fruits. Over all of that, Bella had preferred the Lucky Charms.

"Well, look on the Brightside, Esme. You're not the one who has to deal with a two-year-old on a sugar-high," he regarded, glancing at the box the cereal had come from. The contents look like nothing but sugary coated cereal pieces mixed with sugar coated marshmallows.

He walked over to the table and sat down across from Bella as she shoveled another spoonful of the disgusting, sugary stuff into her mouth.

"Enjoying breakfast?" he asked, masking his distaste for the soggy stuff. Bella nodded her head and returned to eating. She only seemed to talk when it was only her and Edward-she had yet to say a regular word of conversation when others were in the room. The most she had managed was to shout Edward's name if he ever walked too far away from her for any period of time.

There was a knock on the front door and Edward made to get up from his seat to answer. He stopped, however, once he got sight of the slight fear crossing Bella's eyes that always did when he made to leave the room. He sat back down and her eyes cleared immediately. She returned to her cereal and Edward heard Emmett get off the couch in the living room to answer it.

"Hey, Emmett, where's Edward?" Edward heard Alice's voice ask.

"In the kitchen."

"Ok, thanks."

Seconds later, she was walking through the doorway.

"Hey, Esme," she greeted before walking over to the table Edward and Bella were sitting at. She smiled briefly at Bella before turning to Edward. "Hey, Edward, I'm going to borrow Bella for the day, ok?"

Edward felt his eyeballs almost fall out of their sockets.

"No. Not ok."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't just burst in here and borrow a two-year-old for the day."

"Why not?"

"Because she's a living, breathing, human being, not some car you can rent out."

"But how am I supposed to buy her clothes if she's not there to try them on?"

"Why are you buying her clothes?"

"Because all she has is a dirty, ripped nightgown and that one outfit," she gestured toward the outfit in question, "Which she has now worn for three days in a row. Even for a toddler, that's a little disgusting."

As if to back this up, a spoonful of the sugar-coated soggy marshmallows slipped off the spoon, missing the mouth Bella had been aiming for and landing on her shirt. She quickly scooped it off and onto the floor, as if hoping no one would notice, before returning to the cereal.

"Alice, we just went shopping yesterday…" Edward argued anyway, determined to not leave the house.

"For toys. It's completely different…"  
"Yeah, this will make her miserable."

"Quite interjecting your own feelings into the situation. Bella needs clothes, ok? That is a fact. It's not like I'm wanting to go on a random shopping spree with no purpose."

"You're not taking her out of this house."

"Fine, then you come with us."

"I am not coming with you."

"Bella is going shopping with me one way or another, whether you are with us is up to you."

"I am not going shopping with you, Alice, you take forever…"

"I just need to know her sizes, all right? That's it. Have her try on a few outfits, so I know what sizes to get and then I can do the rest by myself."

They stood there, glaring at each other. Alice had her arms folded across her body in a set stance of defiance and Edward knew there was no way he would win this. Finally, he sighed and gave in.

"Fine. But we're not spending the whole day there."

"Do you kids mind if I tag along?" Esme asked. "I need to buy furniture for Bella's room. It's going to look so adorable once it's all finished."

"Sure," Alice responded before Edward could retort-if they shopped for furniture as well, then they really would be there all day. Alice turned to Bella.

"Bella, we're going shopping at the mall today. Doesn't that sound like fun?" she asked in a voice much too cheerful for the situation. Edward was sure Bella didn't fully understand what it was Alice had told her they were doing, but her voice sounded appealing, so she smiled and nodded. Alice straightened up and smiled at Edward as he rolled his eyes. "Good."

Bella didn't seem to have as much of a problem with Alice as she did with the rest of the Cullens. Edward guessed it must have something to do with the fact that Alice was so tiny. As if to prove this theory, Emmett entered the room with a "Hey, Shrimp," directed at Bella and she let out a small squeak of fear and jumped off her seat, running to hide behind Edward. Emmett stared in confusion between where Bella hid and the seat she had previously occupied.

"What did I do?" he finally asked. Alice smirked smugly at him.

"She doesn't run away when _I_ enter a room," she said.

"Yeah, Alice, and I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that Emmett is at least twice your size," Edward answered, reaching behind him to pick the frightened child up. "It's ok," he told her soothingly, carrying her closer to Emmett. She hid her face in his shoulder. "It's just Emmett. I know he looks big and terrifying, but he won't hurt you." He stood next to Emmett, holding her until she finally looked up.

"Hi," Emmett said and she only flinched back slightly. Edward could see the effort it took for Emmett to not laugh. Bella glanced at him for a moment from behind her hair. Then, she shook it back slightly and smiled shyly at him.

"Hey, I got a reaction out of her that wasn't mostly terror!" Emmett exclaimed.

"Oh, God, Emmett, not you too." Rosalie walked into the room, looking annoyed for once instead of angry. It was nice to see she was branching out.

"What? She's cute."

"Of course she's cute. She's small. Most things small are cute. That doesn't mean you all have to constantly fawn over her."

"I'm not constantly fawning."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you, a vampire who does not eat or drink anything you would find in a kitchen, in the kitchen?"

That stopped him.

"Uh…"

"Exactly." She brushed passed him and walked out the back door, heading for the stairs that lead to the garage. Ever since Bella had moved in she had been spending on increasing amount of time out there.

"Don't worry, she'll learn to love Bella just as much as the rest of us do eventually," Alice said, turning to leave the room, "I'll be back in ten minutes. You guys had better be ready by then."

She walked out of the kitchen without another word.

Bella had gone back to hiding her face against Edward's shoulder when Rosalie had entered, so he turned his attention to trying to coax her back to being more open, instead of painfully shy.

"It's no use," he finally said, stroking her hair softly, "You know, Emmett, the least your wife could do is not act terrifying every time she enters a room with Bella in it."

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. Maybe we should just go find our own place for a while. At least until she learns to warm up to the idea of having a little kid around all the time."

Edward let out an exasperated sigh.

"No, forget that. If you guys want to leave, too, then I'll just go move somewhere else with Bella."

"Edward!" Esme exclaimed, "You don't have to do that. We all love having Bella around."

"Yeah, but having her around is driving everyone else out, so I think it would be best for me to just take her somewhere else before we're the only ones left in a house big enough for eight."

"Don't worry about that, Edward. Besides, even if Emmett and Rosalie do move, you know Carlisle and I won't just leave you two, so it's never going to end up being just you two here."

"Yeah," Emmett agreed, "and if it means that much to you, then we'll stay. I'll make Rose tough it out. And, like Alice said, she'll catch on eventually. It's kind of hard to hate that kid for too long."

Edward nodded slightly in agreement, although he still thought the best course of action would be for the two of them to move out.

"Fine, but the second anyone else talks about leaving, we're getting an apartment somewhere else, ok?"

"Sure."

Edward heard the front door open again.

"Ok, I'm ready!" Alice shouted, getting quieter as she entered the kitchen, "Let's get moving before all the cute clothes are taken! I am not having my little sister walking around in the reject clothes of the toddler world."

"Oh, what a tragedy that would be," Edward commented rolling his eyes and Emmett laughed.

_Have fun shopping with Alice._

"Like that's possible," he muttered under his breath.

* * *

"Please tell me we are not hitting all of these malls, Alice," Edward said as they entered the huge shopping center-of course, Alice would pick the biggest one.

"Of course not," Alice scoffed, "Just the ones with kid clothes. I told you I will try to make this as painless as possible for the two of you. And to ensure that this happens, you have to drag me out of any store I attempt to go into with obvious personal motives. We are here for Bella and Bella only."

"No problem…" Edward muttered as he glanced around the main lobby. The place was huge. There were three floors and there must've been hundreds of stores. As soon as they had walked in, Edward saw Alice veer off a bit toward a shoe shop. He grabbed onto the back of her shirt with one hand, stopping her in her tracks. "We're here for Bella," he reminded her.

"Oh, yeah, of course…" she said, struggling to get out of his grip, "You can let go now."

Edward chuckled and let go of her. She turned and glared at him, which he found even more amusing. Bella surveyed the scene, first staring at Edward, and then at Alice, before she started giggling. Alice just stared at her.

"I swear, that girl has no idea what she's laughing at half the time. She just does it because you do it."

"Or maybe she finds your glaring and ballet-turning-struggling as amusing as I do," he suggested and she hissed jokingly, crouching slightly.

"Ok, you two, stop that before you actually start play-fighting. You know how that always turns out," Esme said, approaching them from the Information Desk, carrying a map.

"Oh, God, we need a map?" Edward asked.

"Well, we want to make sure that we get through here as quickly as possible, remember?"

"Yeah, but a map still means you're in a big place that will take you a while to get through."

"Oh, it won't be that bad," Alice tsked, "You'll see."

She grabbed onto Edward's arm and dragged him and Bella into the nearest store.

* * *

The children's section was filled with mothers and their young children, all in various stages of misery. This was not going to be pleasant.

Alice and Esme walked over to the toddler section and began surveying and critiquing various clothes.

"How about this dress?" Esme ask, holding up a frilly, pink mass of fabric that appeared to be made of nothing but lace.

"No," Alice commented, "Little kids tend to be bothered by all the lace and everything. It itches. How about this?" She pulled out a t-shirt that had a gathering of animals on it. "I gather that she would like more tomboyish clothes than girly ones."

"But is that going to stop you from buying girly clothes?" Edward couldn't help but ask.

"Of course not. But we have to have something she'll actually enjoy to wear. Here, hold this." She handed the shirt to him and eh transferred Bella to one arm, so he could hold it.

"You know, I'm holding a child."

"What's another couple pounds going to do?" she shot back, now three racks away, looking at the child equivalent to a blouse.

For the next twenty minutes, Edward carried Bella around, trying to keep her entertained, while not being able to actually do anything, since Alice kept asking him to hold every single thing she pulled off the rack. Finally, she was done.

"Ok, now let's go see how she looks…" She headed for the changing rooms.

"Alice, there aren't even enough places to hang these up at," Edward said, trying to juggle the clothes and Bella at the same time. Alice light out a sigh of annoyance and grabbed some of the clothes from his arms, finding various places around the changing rooms to hang them.

"You know, Alice, other people do need to use this place…"

"Well, they can wait."

Before he could react, Alice snatched Bella out of Edward's arms and carried her into one of the changing rooms. The second she set her down, however, she darted out and ran right at Edward, hugging his legs. Alice sighed.

"Ok, then, Edward can change you…If he knows how to put the clothes on…" she muttered.

"I can put a shirt on someone, Alice."

It was, actually, a pretty big struggle. Bella just did not seem to want to put any of the clothes on. She kept squirming and moving around as Edward tried to yank the shirt on over her head, while at the same time trying not to hurt her.

"Bella, will you please hold still?"

"No want that!" she exclaimed, trying to move to the other side of the area. Edward grabbed her and held her back.

"Why not?"

"Itchy."

"Ok, then."

He walked out of the dressing room and up to Alice.

"She says this is too itchy."

Alice nodded in understanding and examined the shirts for another one that would match the bottoms she had already chosen and handed it to him. That one was much easier to get on Bella and Edward had her dressed in two minutes. (He couldn't quite figure out how to work the weird buttons on the back of the shirt.) Alice seemed to love it, though; she made a very loud squeal when she saw the toddler.

"Oh, it is adorable!" she exclaimed, "Ok, now go try another one on."

It took almost an hour for Bella to try on every single outfit. And this was with Alice suppressing (very valiantly, Edward thought) to not have her try on various tops with other bottoms to see which outfit combination looked best. And, once they were done with Alice's set, Esme re-reappeared with more clothes from the section of the store Alice hadn't gotten to yet. She had grabbed less, however, and it only took them forty-five minutes.

"Ok," Edward said, once he had gotten Bella into her normal clothes. She looked very bored and on the verge of crabbiness and he wanted to get her out of there was fast as possible. "Now, can we please go shop of furniture and get out of here?"

The look Alice gave him was almost funny. If it didn't appear to have the meaning "You're joking, right?" written all over it.

"Edward, I'm not even close to being done."

"Bella's tried on half the children's section of the store! At least!"

"Edward, you and Bella can go. I told you I only needed her to try on sizes." Edward stared at her, not fully understanding. Bella had tried on way more than just a few to "try on sizes". Alice sighed. "Edward, I only grabbed a different style for each brand, so I could know what sizes she would wear in each one. Didn't you notice how you kept putting the same of one thing on her? They were different sizes-I wanted to see which would fit best. Now, you can go take Bella off somewhere and go do something more entertaining while Esme and I finish shopping here."

Edward still stared at her, but in shock this time, rather than confusion. How could one child need this many clothes. He decided against arguing and picked Bella up, trying to get out of there as soon as possible.

* * *

Edward had no idea where he could take a two-year-old in a mall that she would enjoy. He decided to stop by one of those maps they have set up, and glance over it. He found a spot that was a sort of indoor playground and decided it would be the perfect place.

Bella perked up the second she saw the play area. It was set up to look like an enlarged version of plants and other things you find outside. There will all sorts of things for kids to climb over and crawl through and just run around on. Currently, there were at least twenty kids all running around, chasing each other or playing by themselves. Their parents and caretakers all sat around the edges of the play area on cushioned seats, talking to each other, looking over their purchases, or just looking tired and relieved for a break. Bella began squirming to be set down, so Edward placed her on the ground and kneeled in front of her to look her in the eye

"Ok, Bella, you may go play around over there, but don't wonder away from the area, ok?" She nodded her head. "And don't especially don't leave the area with anyone you don't know and don't talk to any strangers." She nodded again. "Ok, you may go now." She smiled hugely, gave him a hug and ran into the play area. Edward found an open seat and sat down, trying to ignore all the amazed thoughts that had began forming in the minds of almost every female in the vicinity.

It was hard to keep track of the little girl. She was very energetic and seemed to be everywhere at once. What was worse was, where Edward sat, he couldn't see her at every spot she went to. Some were in blind spots. So, he took to watching the girl through the minds of others at times-he tried sticking to the small children, since their minds weren't also plagued with thoughts about the "totally hot guy sitting over there" and "Oh, my God, I wonder if I should go talk to him?…"

"Edward, pway wif me!" Edward gave a slight jump. He had begun contemplating what he should do about his female problem and had lost track of Bella for a few seconds. The end result being her jumping, seemingly from out of nowhere, at him.

"Uh….Bella, I'm not sure I'm allowed to…" He glanced around. There were a few other older people who were each playing with the small child they had brought, so he nodded and stood up, letting Bella grab his hand and drag him into the area.

Even while he was in the play place with her, it was out for Edward to keep track of the girl. She ran all over the place, climbing over stuff and darting behind things, hiding and exclaiming "Can't catch me!" Edward play-chased her around the entire place for a while, managing to block out the thoughts from the younger women, who were still marveling over his looks, and the older ones whose thoughts of his attractiveness had been replaced by thoughts of how adorable it was that "that nice boy is playing with his little sister".

Edward positioned himself on the other side of a piece of play equipment that was shaped like a tree with a hole in the middle that had been turned into a sort of slide. Bella came running around the other side, apparently thinking he was still back by the drinking cup she had crawled through and ended up running right into him. Before she could bounce back and hit the floor, however, Edward grabbed her, and threw her slightly into the air before catching her again, with her screech-laughing the entire time.

_Awwww, you two are so adorable…. _A voice cooed in Edward's head and he grimaced slightly. Alice. Edward picked Bella up and carried her out of the play place and over to the shoe store Alice was standing in front of.

"Done already?" he asked sarcastically, before looking at his watch, "It only took you…. 97 minutes. Wow. That's, actually, pretty good for you, Alice."

"Well, I had to save some shopping for the other stores."

Edward's eyes almost fell out.

"You're kidding, right? Alice, you guys have, like, ten bags there!"

"Eleven. And, she still needs shoes. And outer wear. Winter is just around the corner, you know."

"It's August."

"Oh, hush. She still needs the stuff. She also needs socks and underwear and a bathing suit."

"What happened to 'Winter is just around the corner'?"

"It's still August right now."

Edward rolled his eyes.

"Now, come, into the shoe store."

Edward blanched.

"I promise, she'll only have to spend twenty minutes in here. Tops."

Surprisingly, she spent eighteen. Alice was very speedy in picking out every design of every brand of shoe in the store and getting them on and off Bella's feet in various sizes, to see what fit best. As boring as Bella found trying on the clothes, this was infinitely worse for her. She looked completely bored and kept giving Edward pained looks that gave the appearance of her being tortured. It was all Edward could to keep from snatching her up and rushing her out of the store and as far away from Alice as she could possibly get.

To be fair, Alice _was_ trying to make it as painless as possible. Which is why she didn't make Bella try on every single piece of clothing, shoe, and outfit combination she could think of. She just wanted to be thorough and make sure Bella had a closet and dresser full of clothes, like normal toddlers. It wasn't her fault Bella had to start from scratch.

After the shoe trying-on, Edward and Bella just wondered around the mall, trying to find _something_ that would entertain her, as the play place had already been used. They ended up just wondering into various stores that it seemed would be interesting, mostly anything with bright colors, and Edward made the mistake of taking her into a brightly-colored candy store. It was like Toys 'R' Us all over again. Bella wanted everything. So, Edward got quarter pound of each candy in the store-including each individual color of m it hadn't occurred to him until he had exited the store, that they were all the same flavor.

Then it occurred to Edward that eating candy now would ruin Bella's appetite, so he had to work extra hard to try and stop her from eating it all before he could find her somewhere to eat. He was heading for the food court when he made the mistake of walking passed a KB Toys store. Bella stopped dead in her tracks and stared into the store.

"Edward, go!" she declared and pointed imperiously toward the store's entrance.

"Bella, we just got you a bunch of toys yesterday, remember?"

"Go!" she exclaimed again.

"Bella, you have tons of toys at home. We don't need to go through a whole other toy store again."

"Pwease?" she asked, adopting that adorable abandoned puppy eyes look. Edward stared at her, feeling his will crumbling by the second.

"Ok, got the shoes. Let's go get this kid something to eat!" Alice exclaimed, utilizing her knack for coming out of nowhere. She walked closer to Edward and said quietly, so no one else could hear, "Why did I just have a vision of you driving Bella home with _another_ car full of toys?"

"She used the abandoned puppy eyes!" he exclaimed, "You've never seen them, they impossible to resist."

"No, Edward, they're impossible for _you_ to resist." Alice rolled her eyes.

Esme ignored the bother of them and knelt down in front of Bella, looking the child in the eye. She remained undeterred when the child flinched slightly.

"Bella, sweetie. Do you remember going to the toy store with Edward yesterday?" she asked in a gentle voice and Bella nodded hesitantly. "Remember all those toys he bought you?" Another nod. "Sweetie, it doesn't seem fair that you go to another toy store today when you've already got all those wonderful toys to play with at home, now, does it?" Bella thought that over for a while before shaking her head "no". "Ok, then we're going to go get you something to eat, ok?"

"Ok," she said, and held her hand up for Esme to take. All three vampires froze and stared at the little girl. She had never actually spoken flat-out to someone who wasn't Edward. She had also (and more phenomenally) never willingly touched any of the others either. Once she had composed herself, Esme reached her hand down and carefully took the child's hand in her own. Bella smiled hugely and looked to Edward and Alice as if to say "Lead the way." They all shared an incredulous look before heading for the nearest food place.

* * *

"Edward, I tiwed…." Bella said half an hour later, once she had finished her chicken strips.

"Well, we're going to go shop for some furniture for your room and then we'll be done and can go home, ok?" She sighed wearily, but nodded and Edward picked her up from her seat to carry her to the biggest furniture store in the mall. They had decided to skip shopping for Winter outerwear, since they had put the girl through enough trudging around already.

Shopping for furniture wasn't as bad as the clothes shopping. Esme knew pretty much everything she wanted already, it was just a matter of finding it.

"How about this one?" Edward asked, gesturing toward a white bookcase that Esme had described to him.

"No, I want it to be wider. This girl is a reader, I can tell, and we want her to have enough room for all the books."

Edward nodded and continued looking.

"Hey, Esme," Alice called, running over from another section of the store, "I found little table and chair set like you wanted. You can get in white like you asked for, but it also comes already painted and it's the type of design you want."

"Ugh. I can't stand store-painted stuff," she shuddered, "I prefer doing my own painting. Let's go check out the white set."

They walked off and Edward glanced around to make sure Bella was still with them. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against a curio cabinet, her eyes half-closed. Edward walked over and sat next to her; she immediately crawled into his lap and leaned against his chest, yawning widely.

"Just a little while longer, angel, then we can go home." He sat there with her, stroking her hair and humming to her for a bit before Esme and Alice came back over.

"Ok. Now all we need is that bookcase and we are set," Esme said happily. Edward stood up and carried Bella to the bed section.

It took Esme much longer than should've been necessary to pick out that stupid bookcase. Nothing seemed to fit what it was, exactly, that Esme wanted.

"How about that one back there?" Alice suggested, gesturing to a white bookcase that was placed behind an oak wood one. Why someone had placed it there was anybody's guess. "Edward, would you please 'help' us move it?"

Edward rolled his eyes. He hated having to keep up the human façade. It would have been all too easy for Alice to move the bookcase by herself, but if anyone saw that, it would look odd.

"Stay right here," he murmured to Bella, before setting her down and walking over to "help".

"That's perfect!" Esme proclaimed once they had moved it. "Ok, I'll go get a worker to 'move' it for us."

She walked away and Edward turned back to Bella.

"See, Bella, we can go home now…" He froze and stared at the empty space where he was sure he had set her down in. "Bella?"

"What's wrong?" Alice asked, turning away from the bookcase. Edward dint' respond, he just walked a little further down the rows of furniture, searching.

"Bella?!" he asked a little more loudly. She was gone.

"She's gone?" Alice asked, so in-synch with when Edward thought it, it appeared _she _was the mind-reader.

"I don't know! She was right there!" he pointed to the floor. "That's where I put her! Where could she have gone? I turned my back for ten seconds!"

"We have to find her!" They split off in different direction and immediately began searching for her, Edward shouting so loudly, he was sure people up on the third floor could hear him. He followed the faint scent of her and after several terrifying moments was able to locate her heartbeat. He ran as fast as he could without looking suspicious and found the little girl lying asleep on top of one of the beds.

He let out a sigh of relief and practically collapsed onto the bed. He was sure if his heart were still working, it would've been about to burst out of his chest. He lowered his hand and gently stroked her face, which looked peaceful in sleep. He couldn't help but think over how stupid he had been. What was he thinking not watching her every second? She was two years old. And they were in a very public place with people all over the place and tons of dangerous objects. What if some sicko found her and took her? What if she had shut herself into one of the cabinets or knocked something over on top of herself? There were so many bad things that could've happened. He picked her up and cradled her to his chest, needing to still convince himself that he had found her.

Alice and Esme ran up a few minutes later, both looking worried out of their minds.

"Oh, thank God you found her," Alice sighed in relief, collapsing onto the bed as well.

"She was tired," Edward offered as an explanation, "I should've remembered younger human children need naps during the day."

Alice smacked her forehead.

"Shoot! I forgot too. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"Well, let's get that girl home right now so she can sleep somewhere comfortable," Esme finally said and they got up to leave.

Edward held Bella close to him, still scared over everything that could've gone wrong. He made a vow there that he would never, _ever_ let Bella out of his sight like that again. He was going to watch her far more carefully now and make absolutely sure that nothing bad ever happened to her.

* * *

_One last thing before you click off this page. The way Kim and I wrote this originally was I would write a chapter, then she would write a chapter, then I would, then she would. But, we've realized that I am better at writing the little-kid stuff and she's better at writing the romance stuff. So, I'll be writing pretty much every chapter from here on out (except for little sentences and scenes that Kim wants to write or can write betetr than I can) until about half-way through the story, then we'll switch. Idk if you care or not, but I felt like informing you anyway so you know whom you're yelling at or praising and don't blame Kim from some of the stuff I write, since I can get VERY sarcastic about fanfiction in my A/N's. :p  
_


	7. Adjusting

_I think this is the longest chapter I've ever written in the history of my fanfic writing. Which I think is pretty damn good considering the fact that I had no idea what to put in it when I started. :p_

_enjoy. :)_

* * *

"Keep them covered," Esme instructed as they walked towards Bella's room three days later.

"Esme, they are perfectly covered," Edward replied. He was carrying Bella, and held one hand over her eyes so she couldn't see, just like Esme had told him, but she didn't fully trust him and kept repeating herself.

"We just want to make sure the surprise isn't ruined," Alice explained, "We worked really hard on this room, Edward. Don't mess this up."

"The door is closed, how could this ruin anything?"

Alice clicked her tongue in annoyance and Edward decided to just keep his mouth shut. Seconds later they arrived and Esme opened the door, then ran out of the way to stand beside Edward.

"Ok, she can look now."

Edward uncovered Bella's eyes and she squinted in the bright light before her eyes expanded to the size of softballs. She didn't say anything, but wriggled in Edward's grasp to get down, so he set her on the floor and immediately, she ran into the room.

"Woooooow," she marveled, while spinning around in the center of the room.

Esme had done a wonderful job decorating it-as usual. She had put in thick, plush, dark green carpet and painted the ceiling a pretty sky blue color, complete with white, fluffy clouds and faint stars that would glow in the dark at night, but were practically invisible during the day. In one of the top corners of the room she had painted a sun, with a glow-in-the-dark crescent moon painted over it, and along the walls she had painted more sky, with grass coming up and flowers and trees and everything else to make it look like a pretty outside setting. She had painted all the furniture to match, with vines climbing up the legs and the occasional flying bird or butterfly. The only thing that hadn't been painted was an antique wooden rocking chair that sat in the corner, near the bookshelf.

Bella ran over to the toy chest and threw it open. She then took out the first toy she saw-a My Little Pony toy set-and sat on the ground with it. She then looked up and gestured for Edward to join her.

"Well, we'll leave you two alone," Alice said, biting back a laugh and she and Esme left.

Bella and Edward spent the rest of the day in her new room, except when it was time for Bella to eat-Esme didn't want to risk staining the carpet. They played with what felt like every single toy that Edward had bought for her and when bedtime came, Edward sat on the rocking chair with Bella in his lap and read practically every single book to her before she would finally let him stop. Actually, about twenty-nine books in, she fell asleep. Once he had realized her inattentiveness to the book he was reading, he gently stood up with her and laid her in the bed, wrapping the sheet and blanket around her. He just sat in the rocking chair, watching for a little while before kissing her forehead.

"Good-night, Angel," he whispered before shutting the light off and leaving the room.

* * *

Bella was walking down the dark hallway of her old house. She could hear loud popping sounds and screaming coming from across the hall and began to walk toward it. She was several feet from the door when it burst open. She stared at the dark rectangle that was the open door and noticed a pair of menacing red eyes staring back at her. She gave a squeak of fear and run down the stairs. She ran as fast as she could, but it wasn't fast enough and she could hear the dark figure behind her. She hadn't even made it to the trees before it caught her…

Bella's eyes popped open to the dark room. She rolled over, hugging Bun-bun as closely to her as possible and stared at the ceiling. There were glow-in-the-dark stars painted up there and she stared at them for a while, feeling like she was outside. That, actually, didn't help, and she sat up, turning toward the rocking chair she had last seen Edward sitting in. He wasn't there. She felt her heart speed up and panic began to set in. She hopped out of the bed and practically ran to the door, afraid of what might come out of the shadows of her room. It was even worse in the dark hallway and she immediately took off down the hall to where she could see some light. She stood on the landing and stared at the bottom of the staircase, wondering if she should go down or not. She only had to take one glance back at the pitch-black hallway to make up her mind and descend the stairs.

There wasn't a single person in sight. She was wondering if they were all asleep. The bedrooms were all on the second floor. She didn't want to go back up there, it was dark. But she didn't want to stay down here alone, either. Then she heard music playing and she started walking toward it, trying to find its source.

The source, it turned out, was a magnificent piano placed in one of the back rooms. Bella had never actually seen someone play one of those. Her mother used to attempt to play on the smaller, cheaper versions, but she wasn't very good at it. Bella walked around to the front of the piano to see who was playing and stopped. Of all the people in this house, it had to be the scary blond one that hated her. She let out a small gasp of fear, which turned out o be a mistake, since the blond beauty stopped playing and turned to look at the girl. There was no true look of anger or hatred that had normally appeared when she looked at the child, but her eyes narrowed slightly.

Bella immediately burst into tears, convinced the girl was going to start shouting at her soon. Instead, she just made a tsk noise.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked, "I didn't even do anything!" She made a move to go toward the girl, but she just let out a shriek and started crying harder. The blond rolled her eyes and just sat back down on the piano bench, waiting for Edward to come. She knew he must've heard her and was on his way and wondered if he would ever let her play his piano again after this.

* * *

Nighttime was boring now. Normally, Edward would just listen to some music or read, but now there was a two-year-old human living in the room across from his who needed her sleep. So, he shut the light off in his room and laid down on his couch, staring at the ceiling. That soon got boring and he realized he was becoming a bit too obsessive as he started counting the beats Bella's heart was making across the hall, so he grabbed his discman and popped in a cd, turning the volume up full blast and trying to convince himself to not sneak into the room across the hall to watch the little girl sleep.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he heard a shrieking cry. He bolted off the couch, sending his discman flying to the ground and ran out into the hall. Bella's door was opened and she wasn't in her room. Had she disappeared like this all the time for her parents, as well, or did that girl just enjoy giving him dead-heart attacks? What was her deal? He followed her cries into the backroom downstairs and scooped her up into his arms, rubbing her back and soothing calming words to her. Once she realized what was happening, she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face into his shirt.

After she had calmed, Edward looked around to see what had frightened her and spotted Rosalie, sitting on the piano bench and looking bored.

"Am I allowed to continue playing, or is she going to run in terror from that too?" she asked sarcastically.

"What did you do, Rosalie?" Edward asked, trying to contain his anger, so as not to frighten Bella again.

"_I_ didn't do anything. _She_ just walked in here unannounced and when I looked at her, she started crying."

"Of course she did. You're always glaring at her like she's some demonic being or something…"

"Well, I wasn't his time! I just looked at her! It's not my fault she cries at every little thing. I swear, Edward, if you keep babying her like this she is going to grow up to be the biggest wimp in the world."

Edward ignored her and just turned to take Bella back upstairs. He knew that would get Rosalie better than if he had yelled back at her. She hated to be ignored. He could hear her fuming and silently cursing him in her head all the way to Bella's room.

Edward retucked Bella into bed and then sat on the edge, glancing down at her, thinking.

"Bella…" he started slowly, "Why did you leave your room?"

"I was scawed," she whispered, hugging her bunny close to her, as if she were trying to hide behind it.

"Bella, you don't have to be scared here. I won't let anything hurt you, ok?" She nodded her head. "Ok, now you go back to sleep." He kissed her forehead and stood up, but she dove across the bed and grabbed his shirt.

"No go!" she exclaimed and curled up against his side.

"Ok," he said, shifting her so she was laying back down. He tucked the covers back around her and smiled, "I'll stay right here."

He laid down and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his side and snuggled against him. He began humming to her and she fell asleep quickly. She didn't wake once the rest of the night.

* * *

"So, what are your plans for the day?" Esme asked one morning as she washed the pans she had made eggs in. This was slowly becoming a routine. Everything was, in fact. Edward would wake Bella up, take her downstairs to where Esme had made breakfast, and then they all would talk while Bella ate and Esme cleaned up. After that, Edward and Bella would play something. Usually in her room, although sometimes they ventured to other areas of the house. After playing, Bella would eat lunch, nap, and then they would play some more until Bella was tired, but didn't want to go to bed and they would just sit in the living room with everyone, falling asleep on Edward's shoulder as everyone talked about their day or watched TV. Then Edward would put her to bed.

Since that night, Bella had not been able to sleep alone. Every time she tried she would wake up, having had some nightmare or having just woken up on her own, but not able to get back to sleep by herself. So, Edward laid on her bed every night, holding her and humming her to sleep and then he would just watch her. Adorable as she was awake, she was even more adorable asleep. And she talked. Well, mumbled a lot, since she was only two, but it was still really cute. Rosalie had avoided any and all contact with the child, which was perfectly fine by Edward and didn't seem to bother Bella, so he didn't care.

"I don't know. We're probably just going to hang around the house or something like yesterday," Edward answered, reaching across the table and wiping some spilled milk off Bella's face as she tried to squirm away. It made no sense to him how the girl would sit still for anything and everything, but the second he tried to wipe something off her face she turned all worm-like on him.

Esme glanced around her shoulder at him worriedly.

"What?" She was very inconveniently thinking about some bulbs she might plant in October so that they would have a nice garden around the house next Spring. Edward just kept staring at her, knowing she was the worst of any of them to keep something from others for long. She sighed.

"Ok, fine. It's just…. Well, you haven't hunted since you found her and your eyes are getting pretty dark…" It had been about three weeks since he had found her. Nineteen days, seven hours, and twenty-three minutes, to be exact. Although, that was going by the time it was when Edward saw the clock in Bella's old house when he tried to return her, so it was off by a few minutes. Since that day, Edward had spent practically all of his time with the little girl, not wanting to ever leave her side. Who knew what might happen to her if he did?

The problem was, every day he got thirstier. It was really bad at first, then it got more and more tolerable as he spent more time around her, but now that he hadn't hunted in nineteen days, it was starting to get worse again. _We can watch her for a few hours, you know. _He looked up at Esme. Yes, they could, but he wasn't sure whether it was worth the anxiety attacks it might cause him or not. On the other hand, he couldn't just go the rest of her life without hunting, that wouldn't work. He'd be even more dangerous to her in that situation. So, he nodded his head minutely and went back to watching Bella eat her cereal, wondering how he was going to explain his absence for several hours.

"Done!" Bella exclaimed several moments later and she hopped down from the chair and ran to the doorway. She stopped there and turned around to look at Edward, wondering why he hadn't come with her like he normally did.

"Bella, we need to talk," he finally said and he picked her up and carried her upstairs to her room, setting her on the bed. She just sat there, staring up at him with a confused look on her face as he tried to think of how best to explain the situation. Which was ridiculous, since it wasn't like he was leaving for six months or something, just a few hours.

"Ok, Bella…I won't be able to play with you today."

Her eyes got all big.

"Why?"

"Because I….I have to go do something today."

"I come?"

"No, you can't come."

"Why?"

"Because…." Ok, this one was difficult. He couldn't, exactly, tell her the truth. "Because….You're too young."

"Pwease?" Her eyes got bigger and Edward had to look away or else he might say "yes". He knew the others would make him see sense and stop her from leaving with him, but the resulting tears would be far worse than now.

"No, Bella, I'm sorry, but you can't. You're going to stay here and Esme's going to watch you and I'll be back later."

"When?"

"Sometime this afternoon."

She thought that over, probably trying to decide whether that was a reasonable time or not.

"I promise I'll be back, Bella."

She finally nodded, although she looked considerably more miserable, and Edward picked her up, hugging her, and carried her back downstairs to where Esme was.

"So, Bella, what do you want to do today?" Esme asked her once Edward had set her down on the floor of the kitchen. She just shrugged morosely and Edward's resolve wavered.

_Edward, go! She'll be fine._

He kneeled down and gave her one last hug and a kiss on the cheek before running out the door. He ignored Emmett's wishes to come with him. This was something he wanted to get done as quickly as possible and he didn't want anything slowing him down.

* * *

Bella liked coloring. Esme knew this because it was something she and Edward would do and she always seemed to take great enjoyment in it. So, Esme tried that first. She got out all of the coloring books and the package of 64 crayons and sat on the floor of Bella's room with her on the other side of the table as Bella sat in her little chair. She wasn't very enthusiastic about it at first, she just seemed depressed about Edward being gone.

"What's wrong, Bella? Don't you like coloring?" she finally asked after half an hour of her non-enthusiastic coloring. She just shrugged. "You know, Edward's coming home later today and when he does, I'm sure he would love a pretty colored-in picture." She perked up a bit at this.

"Weawwy?" she asked.

"Of course. Especially if you color it. He would love it."

Bella thought this over and then turned to a new page and threw herself into the coloring with more enthusiasm than she had had all morning. While she colored, Esme took this time to try and get to know the child. She knew hardly anything about her, except what she liked to eat and wear and things like that.

Three hours and about a dozen pictures later, Esme learned her favorite animal was the elephant; her favorite color was brown (she was a very peculiar child); she loved to have tea parties with her mom and help her in the kitchen; she didn't have very many friends at the day care center she attended and mainly played by herself; she didn't really like dolls, but loved stuffed animals; and she really loved doing anything to do with arts and crafts. Esme made a mental note to stop by a craft store some day and buy some stuff for her.

She had to stop the discussing, however, once she heard Bella's stomach start growling. She had originally intended to make Bella something special for lunch, but she was having such a good time talking with her that she didn't want to waste any of her time making something extravagant. Especially when she knew Bella would be just as happy with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"Ok, Bella, why don't we put the crayons down right now and go get something to eat?" Bella looked at her briefly and then returned her attention to coloring her picture. "Bella, sweetie, please put the crayon down." She kept coloring. "The coloring book and the crayons will all still be here once you're done eating."

"Not finished…"

"Ok, you may finish that one picture, ok?"

She nodded and continued with her meticulous coloring.

* * *

Hunting was usually something Edward enjoyed greatly, but not anymore. Anything that caused him to be away from Bella for more than ten minutes was something he didn't particularly like. Hunting had become more of a chore than recreation. He just wanted to be done as quickly as possible so he could back home.

What if he took too long and Bella started thinking he had abandoned her? Or what if she fell and got hurt? He wasn't sure if Esme would be able to properly handle that situation. Or what if James came back and attacked them? Esme would be no match for him…

He knew he was being overly paranoid. Bella probably wouldn't even notice he was gone for most of the day, as long as Esme kept her busy enough. Esme knew how to handle small injuries that a child would get, Edward was wrong to doubt her for that moment. And Esme wasn't alone, Emmett and Rosalie were in the house, and Jasper and Alice were downstairs. Bella would be fine.

It didn't make him any less nervous.

He made a deal with himself. Three more deer and then he could go back. He was starting to feel "full" anyway and three more would definitely be more than enough to hold him over for a bit. He heard a lone deer running off to the right and stood absolutely still until the perfect moment to chase it. He counted to three in his head and took off running. The annoying thing about deer is the dart all over the place, meaning you had to put more effort into catching one than was really worth it, since they didn't particularly taste that good, especially if you caught one of the sick ones or the younger ones. The deer darted out into a clearing area and shot up a hill. Edward chased after it for about eight seconds before stopping.

He looked around where he was. He was a small, meadow-like area with various wildflowers scattered about. The clearing stretched upward to a small cliff area that looked over the forest and, if you looked closely enough, a bit of the town. This was the type of area Edward would always look for once they moved someplace new. Had they moved here several weeks ago, this place would be a perfect safe-haven for Edward. Just like that meadow back in Washington. Somewhere to go when the thoughts of others bothered him too much. Somewhere to go when he was sick of watching everyone paired up with that one person who meant the most to them and all Edward ever had were his books and cd's.

But not anymore. Now Edward had someone who meant just as much to him. Someone he cared for and who cared for him; someone to love above all us. It wasn't the same kind of love the rest of his family had, but it wasn't any less precious.

His line of thought reminded him of why he was out here in the first place and he turned around and left, searching for another deer to hunt. As he continued hunting, though, he thought. That place was very beautiful, Bella would probably like it. Maybe he did have a use for it after all.

* * *

Esme sat in Edward's usual chair and kept up a loose conversation with Bella has she munched on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich-cut into triangles so she could avoid the crusts. Esme was quite proud of herself for what she had learned about Bella's eating habits. There was a knock at the door and she got up to answer it.

"Bella, you stay here until I get back, ok?" The little girl nodded and continued eating her sandwich.

It was Alice and she walked in the second Esme had opened the door.

"I notice Edward wasn't here anymore, so I thought it would be the perfect time to introduce him to the little one," she said, walking back toward the kitchen, "Is she in the kitchen? I bet she is, it's midday. Humans usually eat around that time, right?"

"Uh…Alice…." Esme shut the door and hurried in after her. Jasper stayed standing in the entryway, not seeming to want to move.

"What? I knew Edward would freak out if I brought Jasper over while he was around. You know how over-protective he gets. But Jasper has to be around her sometime, otherwise he'll never get used to her and we'll be stuck in this split-living situation until she's eighteen and moves out."

Alice knew her weak spot. Esme hated everyone being split up, even if it was only on separate floors.

"Fine," Alice let out a slight squeal and continued for the kitchen, "But if Edward comes home and freaks out, you're taking the heat for it."

As they were walking toward the kitchen, Bella came walking out, covered in jelly.

"Aww done," she said and she went to move past the two girls.

"Hold up, there," Esme said and she reached down to pick the girl up, holding her at arm's length so she wouldn't get jelly all over her own clothes, "You are not. Didn't we discuss this already? No leaving the kitchen until you're cleaned up." She set the girl down so she was sitting on the counter, wet a few napkins, and rubbed the jelly off as gently as possible. Then she picked her up and sit her down on the floor, turning to throw the paper towels away into the trash bin.

The second she was free, Bella took off running for the hallway, heading toward the stairs, presumably, to return to her coloring. She didn't get that far, however, before she noticed the new man standing in the living room. She froze and stared at the man, unmoving, as he stared back at her. He was so still, she was wondering if maybe he was just a statue; he wasn't even breathing.

Alice came in not even a second after Bella had froze. Alice picked her up and started to walk toward Jasper. Bella hid her face I Alice's shirt and seemed to try and make herself shrink as much as possible.

"Bella, this is Jasper. He's my husband. He's really nice, trust me. Jasper, this is Bella." She stopped several feet in front of him and the two stared at each other. "You can come forward, you know, she won't bite," she joked. Normally Jasper would at least smile at those jokes she made, but not this time, he was far too nervous and tense. Alice sighed. This wasn't going to work. "Why don't we all sit down?" she suggested.

She waited until jasper sat down on the couch before sitting down on the opposite side with Bella seated in her lap. The child was still hiding, so Alice decided to try and coax her out. Unless one of them broke out of their little shells, this meeting was not going to have achieved anything. Moments later, they were joined by Esme and Emmett, which seemed to slightly relax Jasper, he felt better knowing there were more people around to restrain him if he all of a sudden decided to make a snack out of the toddler.

They sat in an awkward silence for a while, each trying to think of something to say, but coming up with nothing. Bella was still hiding and Jasper kept eyeing her like she was a bomb about to go off. The situation was made a thousand times worse by the fact that all of Jasper's tension made everyone else tense, which, in turn, made Jasper tenser, which made this huge, never-ending wheel of tension that just caused problems and didn't do any good. It was starting to annoy Alice.

"Doesn't anyone have anything to talk about?" she finally asked, exasperated.

"Rose has finally, stopped glaring at everything in sight," Emmett offered and she shot him a look, "I was just trying to help…" he mumbled.

"Bella seems to really like animals," Esme said after Emmett's attempt, "Maybe we should take her to the zoo one day. She especially loves elephants."

"How about that, Bella," Alice asked, looking down at her, "Do you want to go to the zoo some day?" Bella peeked out at Alice and nodded. After that, she snuck a quick look around the rest of the room, then removed herself a bit more from Alice's shirt. She knew most of these people. She liked them. They were nice to her. This was perfectly fine company for her to sit normally. However, there was still the case of that scary man at the end of the couch, so she tried to position herself on the extreme edge of Alice's lap, away from him.

"Well, at least she's not hiding," Esme offered, as Alice surveyed the odd position the child had place herself in to sit.

"You know, Bella, Jasper loves the zoo." jasper shot her a frantic "What the hell are you doing?" look and she looked back at him with a look saying "Shut-up and go with it.": "Maybe one day he and I can take you there." Bella looked between Alice and Jasper and then shook her head. "Why not?"

Bella gestured with her hand for Alice to lean closer and whispered in her ear "He scawy." Alice giggled as Emmett and Esme laughed. Jasper even managed to crack a bit of a smile.

"Bella, you don't have to worry about him, he's harmless. In fact." She leaned down to whisper to Bella, as if letting her in on a secret, which piqued the child's interest, "I think he's more scared of you than you are of him." Emmett had to work really hard to not laugh at that one and Bella smiled.

Things went by much more smoothly after that. Everyone began talking more openly and comfortably and Bella eventually moved herself farther down Alice's lap, so she was more comfortable, despite the fact that this brought her closer to Jasper.

After several hours, Alice thought it would be a good idea for Jasper to hold the toddler. They silently argued with each other for a bit before Jasper finally unwillingly and cautiously held out his arms for the child. Bella glanced nervously at his arms, but eventually let go of Alice and let herself be transferred to Jasper. He didn't really hold her like Alice had, he just sort of sat there barely touching her clothes, making sure to never touch her skin. It was another few hours and took a lot of calming himself down, but he eventually was able to just hold her normally, without treating her like a land mine about to explode if her held it the wrong way.

"Why do I do if she falls asleep?" Jasper asked around 7:00. She had already eaten dinner and they had gathered in the backroom, near the fireplace, so Bella would be warm and her head kept dropping off. Carlisle had come home and they were all exchanging stories about their days-mostly dealing with the amazing improvement of Jasper being able to hold Bella without cringing against anything that was in her polar opposite direction.

"Then you hold her and wait until Edward comes home," Alice answered, "If we put her to bed, he'll probably freak on us and declare that we did it wrong."

"He's already going to kill us," Emmett interjected, "Shrimp didn't get her nap today. I can almost see his freak-out now…" He pretend shuddered and they all laughed, even Bella, although they suspected she was just laughing because they were all laughing.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Carlisle said suddenly, "I was looking through Bella's medical files that were in the computer system and I found out that somebody has a birthday in two weeks."

Alice's eyes got huge.

"Her birthday's coming up?"

He nodded.

"September 13th."

"Oh, my God. We have to throw her a party. Can I be in charge of it, please?"

"Uh…I think that would be up to Edward."

"Ok, I'll ask him when he walks in the door in two minutes."

* * *

Edward ran up the stairs, not having any patience for the elevator and almost broke the door of the hinge when he walked in the front door. No one was there. That was strange. He stood in the entryway for a moment before hearing them all gathered in the backroom. All except for Rosalie, who was in her room. What were they all doing in there. He walked in the room and almost had a heart attack.

"What are you doing?!" he practically shouted at them and they all stared at him in confusion, except for Alice who rolled her eyes and mutter "Oh, please…" and Bella who shouted "Edward!" in delight. Edward ran forward and snatched Bella out of Jasper's arms. She wrapped her arms around him, thinking he was just hugging her and he hugged her back a little more tightly than was necessary.

"Edward, please don't over-react…" Alice started.

"I leave the house for one day, not even a day, and you have Jasper come over?! What the hell were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking that if I didn't take a chance now, I would never get one and then they would never get to know each other and we would be stuck on separate floors until God knows when! Jeez, Edward, calm down. It's not like I handed her a pack of matches or something."

Edward felt slightly ashamed. She was right, it wasn't like she had done something deliberately dangerous. He was also ashamed for how he was making Jasper feel now. That wasn't exactly an encouraging response.

"You're right, Alice, I'm sorry." He glanced over at Jasper. "And, I'm sorry, Jasper, that was a huge overreaction. I should've had more faith in you."

"Obviously," Alice added, "Considering the fact that she is perfectly fine."

Edward nodded and walked over toward the couch and sat in the space between Alice and Jasper. It didn't escape his notice that jasper scooted away from him a bit.

"Jasper, come on, I said I was sorry. Don't start acting all over-paranoid like me just because I had a panic-attack."

He smiled slightly and shifted back to his original position.

"So, what were you all discussing when I rudely interrupted?"

"Bella's birthday party" Alice exclaimed. At least, out loud. In her head she was repeating. _Can I plan it?! Can I plan it?! Can I plan it? Please? Please? Please? Please?_

"Uh…Sure…When it is?"

"Bella turns three on September 13th," Carlisle answered for her.

"Wow, in two weeks. You sure you're going to have enough time, Alice?"

"Psh. Please. I could plan a party in two hours."

"Ok, fine."

"Yes!" She jumped off the couch. "Come on, Jasper, I have a party to plan."

"What does that have to do with me?" he asked as he got up and followed her out.

"Well, once I start planning stuff I don't stop. For anything. So, I want us to get some…_stuff_ out of the way first so I'm not _too_ distracted." She smiled at him mischievously.

"Oh! Well, I think I can help you with that…"

He intertwined his fingers with hers and the two ran off.

"Remember to keep it down!" Emmett called after them, "There's a kid in the house!"

"I'd better go," Carlisle said once they had all stopped laughing, "I have tons of paperwork to do. Honestly, there is just to much paperwork involved with being a doctor."

"I'll go clean up the dishes," Esme said, "I just left them on the table because we had company."

"You going to make up an excuse to leave, too?" Edward asked Emmett.

"No way. All I've got to do is go watch TV or go up to Rose, who would probably be more than a little pissed that I spent the entire day chilling with Bella. Even if I was doing it with everyone else around."

"So, what do you want to do, Bella?" Edward asked, looking down at the small girl. She just shrugged, looking around. Then she noticed the piano in the back corner. It was the same one Rosalie had been playing a few weeks earlier. "Do you like the piano?" he asked her, seeing her staring at it. She shook her head. "Why not?"

"Giw got mad," she said.

"Who? Rosalie?" She nodded. "Oh, you mean that time you came down here?" She nodded again. "Well, Bella, you don't have to worry about that. That's my piano, and you can look at it or whatever you want. It's not up to Rosalie."

"Youws?"

"Yep."

She wiggled out of Edward's arms and walked over to it, climbing up onto the bench. Edward walked over to her laughing.

"What are you doing?"

"Pway!"

"Ok," he said and he picked her up and set her down on his lap so he could sit on the bench. Emmett seemed to know what was coming, since he quietly left the room, leaving the two alone. It was a bit awkward with Bella seated on his lap, but Edward managed to play the music as beautifully as he normally could. Bella's eyes got all big and he chuckled at the amusement there.

"Pwetty…"

He changed the music slightly, finally playing out the melody that had been replaying in his head over the past several weeks. He played around with it for a little, which Bella didn't seem to mind him doing, she didn't even seem to notice he hit wrong notes sometimes. By the time he was sure he had completed the piece, he looked down at Bella to see her reaction. She had fallen asleep, slumped against his chest. Edward chuckled quietly, trying not to wake her. It made sense she would fall asleep, after all. That was her lullaby.

* * *

_Tah-dah! The end of the chapter! I don't normally do this, but Kim and I are having trouble coming up with birthday present ideas for some of them. So, if anyone has any idea of what Jasper, Esme, or Alice can get her for her birthday then let us know in your review. Thanx in advance. :)_


	8. BacktoSchool

_I'm really sorry for the long wait. And unlike my Rent readers, you guys didn't even get a warning, because I didn't get to finish this chapter soon enough, I'm sorry. I was pretty sure I wouldn't get anythign published last month. First, I was gone fora week for Sea Camp. Then, it was crunch time for my play and I had practice almost ever day. The second to last weekend was my Key Club Convention and the last weekend was the play. But, everything is over and done with now (~sniff~) so I'll be able to write more often. :)_

_Before I go onto this chapter, I have three things to address:_

_1. I totally sympathize with people who think the plot is moving too slowly. I HATE it when plots move slowly. However, at this point it is crucial to move slowly. We have to actually build a relationship between Bella and the Cullens before we can move on, or else the rest of the story seems a bit ridiculous and random. So, we'll have several more chapters this year and then it'll be about one chapter per year (unless we need more than one chapter to tell a section of the story) until she gets to about her teen years, then things will slow down again, Kim will take over, and you people who keep wanting Bella to be a teen now and get to the romance will be satisfied. :p  
_

_2. Bella is two, the concept of death isn't usually THAT well developed at that age. Yes, she's noticed that her parents are gone and probably not coming back, but it hasn't fully manifested in her brain because she's so young. To her right now, it's more like she gets to spend some time with these nice people she likes. Losing her parents will be fully addressed._

_3. Another thing that, I promise, will be addressed, is Rosalie. There are reasons behind her reactions to things and it will eventually be resolved. You can't rush these things. :p_

_Enjoy. :)

* * *

_There are three words most children hate to hear. Back to school. Even if you're technically not still a child, these words can still suck if they apply to you. Edward hated going to school normally. It was a tedious wasteland filled with pointless coursework, boring lessons, and the same things being taught over and over again. And that wasn't even including the people. Arrogant, egotistical children so shallow that their lives only consisted of who was dating whom and what Ashley wore last week. Teachers with superiority complexes who lived to make that one intelligent student mess up, just once, to prove that they were smarter. Of course, there were always several exceptions, but the majority of the time, this was how it was. You would think schools would change a bit over several decades, at least in coursework.

This time, however, it was infinitely worse to walk out the door of his home and head off to the eight-hour purgatory. This time he actually had to leave something behind. It was bad enough the week earlier when he had had to leave to go hunting; at least then he had something to occupy his mind. At school, there was nothing. Just the unavoidable paranoia and worry creeping up with a faint part of his mind working on tuning out the inane mental chatter of the children around him.

He wondered how Bella was going to take this. She seemed ok after the hunting trip, but that was when she had other things to distract her, as well. Alice and Jasper couldn't visit her if they were attending school as well. And this wasn't a rare occurrence, he would have to leave every day. He thought back to the night before, when he had explained the situation.

"_What do tomowwow?" Bella asked as Edward scooped her up, laying her down in bed and pulling the covers around her._

"_Bella, we have to go back to school tomorrow," he said cautiously, not sure if she would understand what this meant. She looked confused. He couldn't tell whether this was because she didn't know what school was or because this was the first time he had responded with something other than "Whatever you want to do."_

"_What dat?" she finally asked._

"_It's a big building with lots of kids where kids go to learn things."_

"_Wike hewe?" she asked. Edward chuckled. While their house didn't have a lot of kids, it was a place mostly devoted to teaching Bella. They would spend hours wondering around the house while Bella pointed out things so Edward could explain what they were. Esme was constantly letting Bella help her in the kitchen, pointing out all the things they used and helping her read the instructions that were not really needed, but she wanted to help Bella learn to read. Whenever Alice and Jasper came over, they would play with the little flashcards that Alice had decided to buy to help her learn numbers and colors. And every night Bella and Edward curled up on the rocking chair with several books and Bella would attempt to make out the words written on the page. _

"_Sort of, only it's more structured there."_

_Bella thought this over and then laid back on her pillows._

"_When?" she asked suddenly.  
"Sometime early in the morning. It'll last several hours and we'll be home sometime in the afternoon. It won't be too long." He wondered whom he was trying to convince more: Bella or himself._

_Bella thought this over some more and then snuggled under her blankets, closing her eyes._

"You know, we don't have to go to school," Emmett said suddenly, pulling Edward out of his reverie, "We can always just skip straight to college."

"Oh, yes, let's do that," Rosalie said with the first true enthusiasm Edward had heard her use in almost a month, "I hate high school, college is way more fun."

"But if we do that, we'll have to leave sooner," Esme countered, "Bella will be fine, Edward, don't worry."

"Weady!" a voice called from behind them suddenly. They all turned to see Bella standing in the hallway. Edward was surprised she was awake, he had made sure she was sleeping soundly before leaving her room and they had all been extra quiet, so as not to wake her. She had dressed herself and the look was quite comical. She has on a dressy skirt (backwards) with a dinosaur t-shirt and two tap shoes that were on the wrong feet. On her back she had on a Care Bears back-pack and Edward could see Bun-bun sticking out of the top of it.

Edward chuckled and walked over to her, kneeling in front of her.

"Bella, what are you doing?"

"Schoow."

Edward glanced back at the others and they looked back sympathetically. Even Rosalie looked a little pitying. He turned back to the child.

"Uh…Bella…You can't come with us…"

Her face fell.

"Why?"

"Bella, school is for big people, you're too young to go."

"Pwease?" She started to use the abandoned puppy dog eyes again, but Esme saved him.

"Bella, sweetie," she consoled, kneeling down on Bella's other side, "It's nothing against you personally. It's just that they won't let you in because you are almost a quarter of the size of all the other students. Plus, high school isn't a fun place for someone like you. You would have to sit still all day and you wouldn't understand a thing anybody was trying to teach you."

"Yeah," Emmett agreed, "You'll have way more fun here, shrimp. And if I had a choice, I would much rather stay here and play games with Esme than have to go there. You're pretty lucky."

She seemed slightly consoled by this, but wrapped her arms around Edward's neck anyway.

"No go," she said. He hugged her back, not wanting to go, but he knew that if he didn't, it would be harder for them to keep up their charade and would just make things more difficult.

"I have to, angel, I'm sorry. But you'll have fun with Esme and I'll be back before you know it."

He pulled back and kissed her on the forehead before turning to leave with Emmett and Rosalie. Bella started to head for the door and Esme picked her up to stop her from trying to follow them. The little girl just stared at the door for a few minutes and Esme wondered what she was doing. Then she burst into tears.

* * *

"Maybe I should skip today," Edward said, turning to go back into the house. Emmett grabbed his shoulder and turned him back around.

"No, Edward, she'll be fine."

"She's crying!"

"Because she's two, ok? She'll be fine for a few hours."

"But…"

"Edward," Rosalie interrupted as she and Emmett got into the car, "If you don't let her spend some time without you, how is she ever going to grow up to be independent? She'll just be dependent on you her entire life and that's not going to help her at all. Now get in the car and let's go."

Edward and Emmett stared at her in shock.

"Get in!" she screeched and he jumped before opening the back door and sliding in.

* * *

"Bella, do you want to color?" Esme asked. It had been an hour since the children had left for school and she just sat on the window ledge, staring morosely out it down the street. She shook her head. "Do you want to watch a movie?" More shaking. "How about all those toys Edward bought you? Some of them are still in their packaging. Do you want to take them out?" More shaking. "Bella, are you just going to sit there until Edward comes home." This time, nodding. Esme tried her best to stifle her laugh. "Well, Edward will be very upset with me if I don't at least attempt to keep you entertained, so let's go see if we can find something for you to do."

She carried Bella upstairs to her room and glanced around at the shelves.

"How about we play with some stuffed animals?" she asked as she spotted the large net filled with animals in the corner of Bella's room. She walked over to it and tried to figure out how best to work it. Was there a way to undo it, or did you just pull the animals out one-by-one? She finally decided to try and unhook it off the wall, but jerked it too hard and pulled the entire corner of the net out of the wall, leaving a small hole. "Shoot." she muttered as all the animals tumbled to the floor. Now she was going to have to fix that hole…

That, she decided, could wait, however. Esme's slip-up with the net had, apparently, been very comical to Bella, as she had started giggling. Then she toddled over to the pile of stuffed animals and started digging through it, pulling out a few animals every once in a while and tossing them into a pile off to the side. Then she sat down in front of them and gestured for Esme to sit across from her. The two spent the next few hours playing with the animals; a huge improvement from that morning.

* * *

Edward hadn't thought it was possible to become even more bored with school than he had already been. He now found everything even more pointless than it had originally been. He already knew everything, so why should he bother coming at all? Every class was exactly the same. The teacher would introduce herself (or himself) and then pass out the sheet with all the rules on it. Even though the rules were exactly the same in every class and the students had been abiding by these rules since the dawn of time, every teacher felt the need to go over them one by one.

As if that wasn't enough, he also had to deal with the onslaught of never-ending thoughts about him and his family. Most of them revolved around how attractive each one was, with the particular odd-ball thought about how strange they seemed. This was the time when Edward most regretted being the only one his family without a mate. The others were very obviously paired off and, so, no one ever bothered them. There would be the occasional brave person who would think they could steal one away from the other, but they were quickly put in their place and this would, in turn, deter most other future attempts by others.

Edward, unfortunately, didn't have this advantage. He was obviously alone. The odd man out. Which, in human eyes, meant fair game. By lunch, he had been hit on by seven girls, two guys, and one teacher who tried to make her flirting seem subtle, but was so obvious; Edward didn't need to read her mind to know what she kept implying.

He really hated high school.

* * *

Bella refused to take a nap after lunch. Esme suspected that she was waiting for Edward to come home, afraid that he would while she was asleep and she would miss it. She had tried to explain that Edward wouldn't be home until 3:00, but the child still refused to go into her room and sleep. So, instead, Esme put on Aladdin and sat down on the couch, Bella nestled in her arms and wrapped in a blanket. Her plan worked and Bella was out by "A Whole New World".

* * *

One hour left. Just one school hour left and Edward would be free to go home. He wondered how Bella had spent her day and what Esme had come up with to entertain the girl. He knew Bella loved coloring and thought of all the pictures she had colored for him last time (Between those and all the other pictures she had colored and drawn, Edward was on the way to having completely wallpapered his room.) and wondered if she would do more or if Esme would come up with some new idea. Bella still had a lot of unopened toys in her closet and toy chest.

He wondered if he could get away with standing up and walking out the door right now. The teacher probably wouldn't notice, she as too busy going over the rules of the classroom and all the other students were too bored to pay much attention to anything, having heard these five times today already. He could just walk out the door and run home. The idea was very tempting…

Fifty-nine minutes left.

"Now, onto the grading scale," the teacher droned, "As you can see, the grading scale is a bit different this year…" Edward and no idea why she thought anyone could see that. This was a class full of Freshmen, none of them knew how grading went last year.

Fifty-eight minutes left.

He glanced over at Alice, who was staring intently at her own sheet of rules as if it were the most interesting thing on the face of the planet. In reality, she was planning out every single tiny detail to Bella's birthday party. She had a week left and was wondering if it was too short of notice to hire the cast of Sesame Street to show up. He couldn't help but scoff to himself over her absurdities. Alice heard him and shot him a glare before returning to the much more realistic plan of hiring a clown. Which quickly turned into hiring a circus. Edward wondered if Bella would like a circus at her birthday party. Kids loved circuses, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea…

Great, now she's got him doing it…

Fifty-five minutes.

He soon found himself wondering what Bella was doing again. That was a bad idea because it lead him straight to what he had been trying to block out all day-everything that could go wrong. What if she tripped and fell down the stairs? Or locked herself in the oven when Esme wasn't looking? What if she stuck a fork in an electrical socket or a rabid squirrel came in through a window and bit her? So many things could go wrong and instead of being with preventing them, Edward was sitting here in a classroom full of children listening to some woman ramble on about proper conduct in the classroom.

He just kept going over all the things that could go wrong, getting worse and more violent the more he thought about them. Finally, he just couldn't take it anymore. He stood up, a little too quickly, as he shoved his desk noisily across the floor. The teacher stopped speaking and the whole class looked up to stare at him.

"Do you have a problem Mr…." The teacher glanced down at her seating chart, "…Cullen?"

"Uh….I feel sick. May I please go to the office?"

She gaped at him for a moment. He could tell that she had ever intention of telling him "no" and that he looked perfectly fine, but h suspected the expression on his face must've convinced her otherwise. Finally she just nodded and he had to resist the urge to run out the door.

He didn't go the office. He found the nearest exit and practically ran out it ignoring the shouts of a teacher on plan behind him. He rounded the corner of the building and broke into a dead sprint for home, not caring if anyone saw him or not. He didn't stop running until he reached his home.

* * *

"Ok, what's the next step say?" Esme asked sweetly, watching the toddler as she stared at the back of the box of cake mix.

"Two…" Her little brow furrowed as she tried to decipher the letters that followed the number. "Ee…. E…ges?" She looked up at Esme to see if she was correct.

Esme walked closer to the stepstool the child was standing on and kneeled closer so she could point at the box.

"What letter is that?" she asked sweetly.

"E!" she proclaimed.

"Very good. And what sound does that letter make?"

"Ee!" she exclaimed again, pronouncing it the long way.

"Right, but remember that letter has two different sounds. What's the other sound?"

Bella just stared at her.

"What sound does the letter 'E' make in your name?"

"Eh," she said, pronouncing it the short way this time.

"Very good. Now, what's the next letter?"

"G!"

"You are so good at this," she praised, "Now, what sound does 'G' make?"

"Jah?"

"What's the letter after 'G'?"

"G again."

"Right, it's not an 'E'. So, that means it makes what sound?"

"Gah!"

"Right!"

She gave Bella an enthusiastic hi-five and the girl was all smiles.

"I wead!" she said.

"Yes, you are a very good reader. Now, would you please go get me two eggs out of the fridge?"

She nodded and hopped down from the stool, dragging it over to the fridge. Esme couldn't help but smile at her. She looked so adorable in her mini-apron. Esme had gone to the store the week before and bought them matching aprons since Bella seemed to love helping her out in the kitchen so much. Esme heard the front door crash open and went to see what was the matter. Edward was standing in the doorway, taking his backpack off. He tossed it onto the sofa as he walked into the house.

"Where's Bella?" he asked.

"In the kitchen. We're making cupcakes. Why are you home already? School doesn't end for another forty-five minutes, doesn't it?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but there was a slight clattering sound in the kitchen and then a small scream. The two bolted into the kitchen to see Bella standing in front of the open fridge on her stepstool, staring down at two eggs that had hit the ground and broken. She was crying.

"Eggs dwopped!" she cried and Esme immediately picked her up and started shushing her.

"Shhh, sweetie, it's ok. Accidents happen. You aren't hurt, are you?" She shook her head. "Good, then nothing's wrong." She rocked the toddler for several minutes while she calmed down. Edward would've intervened, but Esme seemed to be doing a very good job and she seemed to have a good time playing the mother role.

Once Bella's tears had subsided she glanced around the room. Her eyes fell on Edward and her face lit up as a huge smile spread across her face.

"Edward!" she exclaimed and reached her arms out for him. Esme barely had enough time to actually pass her over to Edward before almost dropping her. She threw her tiny arms around Edward's neck and hugged him what must've been tightly for a two-year-old; he hugged her back as tightly as he could without her hurting her.

"Edward, we pwayed animaws!" she exclaimed, "And we make cupcakes!"  
"I can see that," he said, smiling, glad to have her back in his arms.

"Edward, you never explained why you are home so much earlier than your siblings," Esme said with a slight scolding tone to her voice. He looked at her with a slightly desperate expression.

"I just couldn't stand being there anymore. I kept thinking of all the bad stuff that could happen and I panicked and bolted out the door."

Esme nodded and turned back to the mixing bowl as Bella resumed her chattering. Edward sat down in a kitchen chair with Bella seated on her lap and listened to her recount everything that had happened during her day. She had been completely safe, of course, but Edward felt a slight pang of something he couldn't quite identify. He didn't like how Esme got to be there for all those things and do all that stuff with Bella while he was stuck at school. It took a while of concentration before he realized he was jealous. Which was both ridiculous and stupid. He decided to ignore it and just focus on Bella's story, since she could tell he wasn't paying attention and kept shouting "You wistening?" at him.

* * *

Edward had just gotten Bella to sleep when Esme and Carlisle called him downstairs to talk. He was 99% sure that it had something to do with him bolting out of his classroom earlier that day. First day of school and one of the Cullen kids already had some weird, freaky episode. That definitely wasn't going to help them fit in.

"You're not in trouble," Carlisle said as Edward entered the backroom, "We were just wondering how bas things were earlier."

"Not too bad…At first. But, when I got to last period, I just sort of snapped. I think I'm just too paranoid and I know half the stuff-ok, most of the stuff, really-is completely illogical and will probably never happen, but I still can't stop the panic."

Esme chuckled lightly.

"You're like a new mother," she said. She got a thoughtful expression on her face before speaking again, "Maybe it would be best if you not go to school for a while and just stay home with Bella. She was miserable without you around and I had to keep her occupied every second of the day or else she would get mopey and return to just staring out the window and down the road, waiting for your car to drive back up. And you, obviously, aren't doing very well with this."

Edward shot a glance at Carlisle to see what he thought.

"I think Bella is going to need to learn to be independent and not need to have you around all the time. But it's only been a month since her parents died. She needs stability right now, and you're the closest thing she has to that right now. If you go away for several hours each day, it's more likely that it'll do more damage than good."

"What will we tell everyone about why I'm not in school?"

"We'll come up with something. We can just say that you've decided to go to different school with better classes for your or something. It's New York, there are tons of schools in the area. You deciding to go to a different one isn't that peculiar."

Edward nodded.

"So, am I allowed tog o now?  
Carlisle laughed.

"You act as if we were punishing you for something. Yes, you may go."

"Thank you." Edward smiled and raced back up the stairs, glad he would be able to go back to spending every waking hour with Bella.

* * *

_And that's chapter eight. We still need gift ideas, so if anyone has any, please let us know. :)_


	9. Emmett's Present

_I'm sorry. Again. I'd explain why it took so long, but I know you guys want to get to the chapter, so I'll just say I was really busy with graduating and cleaning and trips and visitations. Also, this was originally not goign to be all there was to the chapter, but it took me six pages to write just this part and it got to the point where the chapter was ridiculously long and you guys have waited so long, I decided to give you this part right now as its own chapter and write the rest in chapter ten._

_Enjoy. :)_

* * *

For the first time in several weeks, Edward wasn't there when Bella woke up in the morning. He was downstairs, helping Alice put up decorations for Bella's birthday party. Alice had originally resisted, wanting to do everything herself, but she couldn't deny that Edward being tall gave him an advantage at hanging streamers up.  
"No, Edward," Alice tsked for what felt like the hundredth time in the past hour, "The blue streamers go over there! Honestly, you're almost more of a hindrance than a help."  
"Do you want to put these streamers up yourself, then?"  
She scowled at him.  
"I don't even see why you're down here. You hate parties and I can't recall a time you weren't there when Bella woke up."  
"I want to make sure she has a nice birthday party and if the streamers are so low that Emmett could walk right into them and knock them down, it'll kind of mess things up."  
She rolled her eyes, but he still saw the smile she was trying to conceal.  
They heard a sound from upstairs of a door opening and closing and Alice's eyes almost popped out of her sockets.  
"Go stop her!" she exclaimed, pushing Edward toward the stairs, "She's not supposed to see the decorations until it's all finished!"  
"What, exactly, am I supposed to do? Keep her up there all morning?"  
"Just go!"  
He got to the top of the stairs just as Bella was about to head down them. He couldn't help but laugh when he saw the girl. She was wearing one of the fancier dresses Alice had bought her (This one was on the correct way, but half the buttons in the back weren't buttoned and the ones that were were in the wrong holes.) all bunched up around her. She had learned from past mistakes, however, and was now carrying some shoes instead of trying to put them on herself.  
"I dwessed mysewf!" she proclaimed once she saw Edward and he laughed harder.  
"I can see that. Now, why don't we go change you out of this and into something more suitable for eating breakfast." If she stained that dress, Alice would kill him.  
"But I wike it!"  
"I know, but you might get syrup or something on it and then it would just be a huge mess. Besides, Alice already has your 'perfect outfit' all picked out for you." The disgruntled toddler crossed her arms, glaring at the floor.  
"Tell you what, if you change into something less dressy right now and wear Alice's dress later, I'll let you wear whatever you want tomorrow." Her face lit up at that.  
"Ok!" she exclaimed and she ran into her bedroom.

* * *

Edward had to keep Bella's eyes covered if he was taking her anywhere downstairs. The only place she could look was in the kitchen to eat breakfast and she had to sit with her back to the doorway. Esme decided to do something extra special for Bella's birthday and made her pancakes in cute little animal shapes. She made pancakes in the shape of puppies, kitties, turtles, lions, and whales. She even spent a while making a pancake that was in the shape of an elephant. Bella was delighted and took a lot of thinking deciding which shapes she would eat.  
After breakfast, Alice insisted on Edward taking her out of the house to minimize the chances of Bella seeing the decorations. No matter how hard Edward tried to convince her that it wouldn't matter to a two-now three-year-old, she remained unconvinced.  
"I can give her my present!" Emmett exclaimed and Edward gave him a wary look. He was concerned by what Emmett would get her that they would need to leave the house for. "Chill, man, it's perfectly fine for a toddler." Edward gave him a skeptical look. "Would it make you feel better if I let you tag along?"  
"Sure," he sighed.  
"Ooh!" Alice exclaimed, "This is a great opportunity for Jasper to spend some time with her! Make him go with you!"  
"Alice, I don't think-"  
But she ignored him and ran to the stairs that led to her apartment.

* * *

Ten minutes later they were standing outside a store, all just staring at the entrance. Esme had made Carlisle go with the other boys to promote bonding like Alice had, and he was looking a bit like he wished he could have stayed at home, putting up decorations.  
"This is a bad idea…" Jasper commented.  
"Oh, come on, it'll be fine!" Emmett defend himself, "This place was practically made for kids!"  
That was true. There were kids all over the place with hassled-looking parents."  
"I think Jasper was referring to the fact that taking a toddler into this store will definitely bring out the demanding, tantrum side of her," Carlisle stated, also looking a bit apprehensive about taking Bella into the store.  
"Well, there will be no tantrums, because she can get whatever she wants," Emmett stated matter-of-factly and they all turned to him. "What? It's the kid's birthday, how can you say 'no' to her on her birthday? That seems cruel."  
"Want down!" Bella announced as her squirming reached its peak.  
"You're in charge of her," Edward said, setting the child down and watching her walk into the huge Build-A-Bear shop, Emmett right behind her.  
"Want dis one!" she announced picking up the ballerina bear on display.  
"Bella," Edward laughed, "It's Build-A-Bear, you're supposed to build one, not buy one already made."  
"Hey!" Emmett jokingly snapped, "This is my birthday present for her, I am in charge here." He playfully glared at Edward and he held his hands up in a surrender pose before backing away and gesturing for him to take over. Emmett turned back to Bella. "Bella, it's Build-A-Bear, you're supposed to build one, not buy one already made." Edward snickered.  
"Ok," she said and she put the bear back. Emmett gently took her hand in his and lead her over to the wall of all the animals they had.  
"See, Bella? You can pick any of these." Her eyes immediately lit up  
"But you can only have one, Bella," Carlisle said authoritatively. Emmett gave him a look. "You have to limit her, Emmett, don't be like Edward." They all laughed as Edward rolled his eyes.  
"Ok. You may pick one, ok, Bella?"  
She nodded then ran over to the wall to look at the choices.  
"Want dis!" She declared holding up a dog. Then she put it down and ran over to a black bear. "No, dis!" Then she set that one down and ran over to another bear. "No, dis!" This went on for quite a while before she finally decided on a fuzzy white one. "It's pawe wike you guys!"  
They got up to the big fluffing machine that had mounds upon mounds of fluff rotating in it. Bella stared at it in wonder, holding the unfluffed teddy bear.  
"Hi," the worked said cheerfully to Bella, "Want me to help you fluff him up?"  
She immediately ducked behind Emmett, who was the closest. The others laughed.  
"Sorry, she's shy," Edward said, feeling a stupid flair of jealousy at the fact that Bella was now hiding behind Emmett instead of him. The girl glanced up when Edward spoke and saw the four men who had come with the small child. Her eyes widened a fraction and she became flustered.  
"Uh…That's fine. We get that a lot with kids." She smiled at them and Emmett coaxed Bella over to stand by her.  
"Ok," the girl said, trying to return to her work mode, "Can I see your bear please?" Bella clutched the bear more tightly to herself, looking suspicious. "He's not going to be a lot of fun with no fluff inside him, so we're going to fill him up and then he'll be nice and cuddly."  
She stared at the woman for several moments before stepping forward and handing her the bear. The girl undid the thread and stuck his back onto the nozzle of the fluff machine.  
"Ok, step on the pedal to let the fluff into the bear."  
Bella stepped gingerly on the pedal and a large whooshing noise came from the machine. She shrieked and ran back, this time hiding behind Edward, since Emmett wasn't far enough away from the thing. Edward immediately turned his attentions toward calming the child, but Emmett and Jasper had to work hard to keep from laughing.  
"Hey, Shrimp," Emmett finally said once he had gotten ahold of himself, "What's wrong?" He knelt down so he was on her level. Edward did that a lot and it always seemed to help.  
"Scawy noise," she whispered.  
"That's just the fluff going into the bear." She didn't look convinced. "Tell you what? How about I work the thing with you, huh?" She perked up a bit at this. She nodded her head and took Emmett's hand as they walked back over to it.  
"Ready to give it another go?" the girl asked and Bella nodded. Still holding Emmett's hand, she set her foot on the pedal and glanced up at Emmett waiting for him to join her. He stepped on it with her and the loud noise came back again, causing Bella to hide her face in his pant leg. Eventually, she got used to it, though, and was willing to actually look at the bear as it filled with fluff.  
"See? It's not that bad," Emmett said, but he stopped paying attention to what he was doing and pushed the pedal too had, causing the fluff to come out really fast. The bear quickly filled up and then exploded, causing tiny pieces of fluff and fur to fall down and fluff to shoot out of the machine. He immediately took his foot off and snatched Bella off the machine to stop it.  
The worker girl ran over to the machine and switched it off before staring in disbelief at the fluff all over the floor. Carlisle and Jasper immediately started helping pick up the pieces while Edward ran over to Bella to make sure she was all right. It took all his self control to not snatch her out of Emmett's arms, but he knew he had to give him a chance to rectify things. Bella stared at the giant pile of fluff with huge eyes, then she burst into tears.  
"You make bear go boom!" she exclaimed.  
"Uh…" Emmett started thinking quickly, trying to come up with something, "No, I didn't….I….Did a magic trick….See? I made it disappear from there." He pointed at where the bear had been before walking back over to the bins of animals. "And reappear right here." He pulled out another white bear from the bin. Bella looked at it with wide eyes.  
"Wooooow," she said in wonder, drawing the word out, "Emmett magicaw."  
"Yes, I am, now let's go fill him up."  
The worker remained staring at everything, not sure what to do as Carlisle and Jasper picked up the remaining pieces of fluff and threw them in the trash.  
"We'll pay for both bears," Carlisle said quickly to her, "I'm really sorry about this."  
"Uh…It's…fine…" She said slowly. She took another moment before returning to the fluff machine. "I'm sorry about that, the machines go a little haywire sometimes."  
"Don't worry about it," Emmett said, glad that Bella had stopped crying now. He handed the girl the bear back and let Bella work the pedal of the fluff machine by herself this time.  
"Ok," the girl said once it was properly stuffed, "Pick a heart from that bin." Bella turned to the small red bin next to her and began rummaging through the hearts. She searched intently, examining each and every heart she came across before putting it back.  
"Bella," Emmett said, "They're all exactly the same."  
"Awe not!" she protested, still examining the hearts.  
Emmett couldn't see what she meant, they were all the same. Each one was red and made of felt, but, whatever, it was her toy. Finally, after nearly five minutes she pulled one out and declared it the perfect one.  
"Ok, now, hold the heart and do what I tell you, ok?" Bella nodded and proceeded to do this silly dance with the girl while the girl recited a poem. It was pretty adorable and Edward wished he had brought a camera. Alice was going to be pissed. "Up high, down low, side to side, rub it on your head, touch your nose, touch your arms, spin around, jump up and down three times, raise the roof, put it on your heart, close your eyes, make a wish, kiss the heart, and put it inside." She held the back part of the bear opened and Bella pushed the heart in before the girl sewed it up. "Now, you can go pick out some clothes for you bear and pick out a name for him and everything before you check out."  
"Ok," she said.  
"Bella, what do you say?" Carlisle asked.  
"Thank you."  
They walked to the other side of the store that had at least a hundred different outfits.  
"Why on Earth would a bear need this many clothes?" Jasper asked.  
"It's supposed to be like a doll, Jasper," Edward explained, "So kids can play dress-up with them. Plus, I don't think they expect you to buy all of them. Just pick a theme and go with it."  
"Ok, Bella," Emmett said as they walked around the aisles, "What outfit do you want for your bear? How about this?" He held out the ballerina set to her, since she had wanted the ballerina bear on display.  
"No!" she giggled.  
"What's so funny?"  
"Boys awen't bawewinas."  
"Oh, your bear's a boy?"  
She nodded and he felt confused, he did not recall ever being told the bear was a boy. Bella proceeded around to the other side of the clothes, where the boy clothes were and started looking at them all.  
"How about this?" He held up an army outfit and she shook her head. "How about this?" He held up a doctor uniform. "He can be a doctor, like Carlisle."  
"But he doesn't wike bwood," she said and he put it back, wondering how on Earth she knew that an inanimate bear didn't like blood.  
"What about a baseball uniform? Does your bear play any sports?" She shook her head.  
"He fawws down a wot."  
"Ok…" They went through every outfit in the section and she didn't like any of them.  
"Bella, you have to pick something," Jasper said.  
"I don't wike 'em," she argued.  
"Are you sure the bear's not a girl?" Emmett asked.  
She nodded again. Then she glanced around and her eyes lit up. She immediately ran away from them to the other side of the store.  
"Bella!" Emmett shouted and raced after her, the others right behind, "Bella, you can't run off like that," he said once he caught up with that. Now he knew how Edward always felt.  
"Sucks, doesn't it?" he said and Emmett rolled his eyes.  
"Dis!" She exclaimed and held out a baseball hat.  
"But Bella, I already asked if you if you wanted a baseball uniform."  
"No! The hat!"  
"Just the hat?"  
She nodded and he sighed. This made Edward laugh for some odd reason.  
"Ok, we'll get you the hat." All exasperation he had felt melted away when he saw the size of the smile she got just by being told she could buy the bear a hat. Next was naming. They walked over to one of the computers on the side of the store and Bella sat down in one, staring at the screen. Emmett walked over behind her and picked her up, sitting down on the seat in her place and setting her on his lap. It was then that it occurred to him that he had never been this close to her before. Being this close, she felt really warm and he had never noticed how good she smelled….  
He heard a quiet growl from behind him and snapped out of his train of thought. Right. Bella. Little sister. Not food. Still, this was pretty maddening, he wasn't sure how Edward could stand it all the time.  
"Ok, Bella, what do you want to name this guy?"  
She sat there, thinking.  
"How about Snowball?" Jasper suggested, thinking of the common names people would give their pets. Bella shook her head.  
"Teddy?" Carlisle suggested.  
She shook her head again.  
"Roger," Edward suggested and the others glanced at him, "What? It sounds like a nice name for a teddy bear."  
Bella shook her head.  
"How about Mr. McBearington III?" Emmett asked and everyone turned to look at him. "I think it's a great name!" he defended, but Bella disagreed and shook her head.  
They spent the next quarter of an hour suggesting names to Bella, she didn't like any of them.  
"Well, Bella, do you have any ideas?" Emmett finally asked and she thought.  
"Bear-bear!" she exclaimed.  
"Bear-bear?" they all repeated in disbelief. She looked up at them with her big eyes.  
"You don't wike?" she asked, her bottom lip trembling and they all protested at once.  
"No, it's great!" Edward responded.  
"Wonderful name for your bear," Carlisle complimented.  
"I think it's awesome," Emmett said.  
Jasper, always the logical one, was the only one who hadn't said anything.  
"Bear-bear? Really?" he finally said, "That's just like the bunny, only with a bear!" It didn't make sense to name two animals pretty much the same thing. He really didn't understand the minds of small children.  
Bella's eyes got all wide, filled with hurt and her lip began trembling again.  
Emmett elbowed him and Edward glared.  
"And…It's perfect!" he said, backtracking, "Makes total sense with the bunny, I'm sure they'll be best friends."  
He said it like he couldn't believe he was letting the words leave his mouth. It seemed to please Bella, however, and she smiled and turned her attention to Bear-bear, trying to get the hat onto his head.  
They filled the rest of the "birth certificate" before finally moving to the checkout line. Edward checked his watch and couldn't believe it. They had spent two hours in this store. At least they had given Alice plenty of time to set things up. Emmett paid for the bear and they left, Bella cuddling her new toy happily.  
"How cute," Edward heard one of the workers say to her coworker as they left, "It's nice to see some boys taking their sister out."  
"I wish my brothers had taken me to Build-A-Bear," her coworker agreed.

* * *

_I know the ending's abrupt, but, like I said, it was originally supposed to have more. _

_I don't know whether Build-A-Bear existed back then, so let's just pretend it did, because it makes for an adorable chapter. :)_

_Good news: Next chapter's already under way, so that should be up pretty soon. More good news: It's Summer and all my Summer preoccupations are over, so I should have more time to write. :)_


	10. Happy Birthday!

_I feel really terrible with how I am writing this. It's months in between updates and it makes me feel like a total b!tch for making you guys wait so long. I'm sorry, you guys, I was busy with college stuff (Preparing to start and then starting.) and was busy with other stuff as well. I hope you all don't hate me, I got it done in the end, at least._

_This chapter is dedicated to carpe-diem-1299 and Larynn for their awesome gift ideas. Other people gave us some good ideas as well, but we either already had that idea (For example, several people gave us ideas for what Edward should give her when we had already decided on that. :P) or someone else (Probably Larynn, a lot of people suggested that one.) had already suggested it. Thank you guys for the help, though. And my friend Shawnna for helping out with stuff.  
_

_Enjoy. :)_

* * *

"Took you long enough," Alice said when they pulled into the garage,

"Sorry," Edward said as he climbed out of the car holding Bella, "Bella's a very indecisive person."

"It took her fifteen minutes to pick out a name," Jasper explained, "God only knows how long the outfit choosing took place, and you do _not_ want to hear about the fluff machine."

"Fluff machine?" Alice asked, amused, "You're so telling me later." Then she turned to Edward. "Ok, now, cover her eyes and change her into the party dress I picked out for her. Then you can bring her downstairs." She turned around and ran back into the house to put the finishing touches on the decorations, practically shaking with excitement.

He changed her into the dress and carried her over to the stairs.

"What do now?" Bella asked curiously as they walked down toward the living room together.

"Well, I'm sure Alice has something planned," he said, semi-feigning innocence. He knew Alice had a party planned, he just had no idea what that party entailed. Bella reached up for the door handle to the living room and began to enter. The second she had a foot in the door the other five jumped up and yelled "SURPRISE!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs, turned around, and ran up the stairs.

"Awesome," Rosalie said sarcastically and Edward shot her a dirty look before running after the toddler. "Ok, no more surprise parties," he heard Alice murmur to herself.

He found her hiding behind the first door on the second floor, which was a bathroom. He walked in and glanced around the room before walking over to the tub, where he found the girl curled up, hugging her bunny.

"Bella, what are you doing?"

"Hiding," she whispered.

"Why?"

"Scawy."

"Bella, that was just everybody else throwing you a surprise party."

She stared at him.

"Pawty?"

"yeah."

"What dat?"

"It's when a bunch of people get together and hang. There are games and cake and you get presents."

"Pwesents?"

"Yeah."

"Ok." She stood right back up and climbed out of the tub. Edward picked her up and carried her back downstairs to where everyone was gathered in the living room, looking worried.

"I am so sorry for scaring you, Bella," Alice said as soon as they entered.

"Yeah, sweetie," Esme agreed, "We didn't mean to scare you."

She hid her face slightly in Edward's shoulder, not liking being the center of everyone's attention.

"Ok!" Alice exclaimed, "It's time for games!" Every stared at her. "What? It's a party. All parties have games. And everyone will play." She glared pointedly at each person, as if daring them to argue with her. "The first game is Pin the Tail on the Donkey." She held out a blindfold in one hand and a "tail" on a tack in the other. "Ok, who's first?"

Jasper was the one to finally man up and allow Alice to tie the blindfold on him-a little too expertly.

"What?" she asked after Edward twitched slightly at the mental assault he got from the two of them.

"Nothing."

Alice spun Jasper around several times and then stood back. "Ok, go."

He took a step forward and bumped into the table that was directly in front of him, stumbling slightly. Bella started giggling.

"Alice, why is there a table in my way?"

"Well, it's not very fair for all of us against Bella. She's a three-year-old human and we're all vampires, so we get obstacles."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. And the second you touch the wall, you stick the pin. It's not fair to feel around for where the poster is and guessing whereabouts the tail would be."

Edward was pretty sure Jasper would've been giving her a very disbelieving look had he not been blind folded. But he sucked up whatever response he normally would've had and attempted to navigate his way around the living room. He ended up pinning a decorative mirror and Esme winced slightly as the glass shattered.

"Oops." Jasper whipped the blindfold off. "Sorry, Esme."

"It's fine, I'll just buy a new one." She did a good job at hiding her dismay.

One by one they all took their turns with pretty much the same disastrous results of hitting furniture and pinning everything but the donkey. Emmett ended up pinning Rosalie on what he claims was an accident, but she suspects otherwise since he followed her whenever she moved. The only two who managed to actually pin the poster were Carlisle (who hit the upper right corner) and Alice (obviously) who hit the leg. Edward almost hit the poster, but moved to the left last second and missed it, not wanting Bella to lose. Rosalie had basically refused to play the game the only way she could-by walking straight through the furniture and slapping her tail onto the wall before taking the blindfold off and sulking on the couch.

"Ok, Bella's turn!" Alice exclaimed and she shoved the furniture remnants out of the furniture out of the way and blindfolded Bella before spinning her around.

"Alice, what are you doing?" Edward asked worriedly.

"I am preparing Bella to play the game."

"Why did you blindfold her?"

"Because that's how the game is played. If she can see, there's really no point to the game."

"But did you have to spin her, too?"

"What's wrong with spinning her?"

"She is now blindfolded, dizzy, and carrying a pointy object. You don't see a problem with that?" As if to prove his point Bella held her hands out awkwardly, wobbled slightly as she took a step, and fell down. Everyone jumped up and ran to her, except Rosalie who rolled her eyes from her spot on the couch.

"Ok, maybe the spinning is a bit much," Alice admitted as Bella exclaimed "Can't see!" while flailing her arms around wildly on the floor. They took the blindfold off and let Bella's dizziness subside before re-blindfolding her and letting her go again.

She began tentatively taking steps waving her arms out in front of her. Edward took a tentative step after her, wanting to catch her if she fell.

"Edward," Alice said reproachfully, "Let her walk. She can do this. Come on, Bella, you can do it!" she then cheered.

Bella continued to maneuver her way cautiously across the room, but was veering to the right of the poster. Then Edward realized she was heading for the window. She was just about to talk into the glass when everyone jumped up in a panic and ran at her. Even Rosalie stood up from the couch. Edward got there first and snatched her up.

"Hey!" she suddenly shouted, looking around as if changing the position of her head would make the blindfold more see-through.

"Uh….We realized that you're too short, so I'm lifting you up to the poster," Edward covered quickly and he walked over to where the poster was and stood in front of it. "Ok, there you go." She brazenly slapped the tail onto the poster (Which wasn't exactly where the tail should be, but was much closer than any of the others.) and everyone cheered for her as Edward took the blindfold off. She smiled hugely and clapped her hands together like everyone else, although Edward wasn't sure she knew exactly why she was cheering.

"Ok, let's play musical chairs now," Alice said and she ran into the kitchen, dragging some chairs back with her. Once the chairs were set up she declared that someone had to work the music and Rosalie volunteered, not wanting to take place in whatever ridiculous game they were playing. Alice turned to Bella and got down on her knees so they were face to face. "Ok, Bella, the way to play this game is when the music plays, you walk around the chairs and when it stops, you try to sit down before anyone else does, ok?" She nodded and everyone took their places around the chairs.

Rosalie hti the play button and everyone walked around the chairs, having to do so slowly because of Bella's shortness slowing everything down. Rosalie hit the stop button and everyone scrambled for the chairs. Esme was the first one out, and Edward suspected she wasn't trying as hard as she normally would've, due to the fact that she wanted to take pictures. The next time around Rosalie let the music play for almost two whole songs.

"Rosalie, you have to hit stop eventually," Jasper said.  
"I know. I just wanted to see how long I could make you guys put up with this," she smirked. Carlisle opened his mouth to reprimand her, but she quickly hit the stop button. Taken off guard, he was the next one out.

"That wasn't very nice," he said to her as he went to join Esme, but he was smiling.

"I was never told I had to be nice."

The next round, she hit the play button and then almost immediately hit the stop button. Bella was the only one who scrambled into a seat. Everyone else glanced at Rosalie.

"I hit stop," she said and the others dove for the chairs, Emmett managing to just squeeze past Alice, making her the third one out. She huffed, crossing her arms and walking over to Carlisle and Esme, who were trying hard not to laugh at her.

Edward was the next one out, although he did it on purpose, wanting Bella to stay in the game. Alice gave him a look as he walked over to them. _Did Edward Cullen just throw a game? _"It's her birthday."

In the next round, Jasper barely beat Emmett out and as the two practically wrestled over the chair, Bella was free to climb onto the other one that the two had apparently forgotten existed. She just sat there, watching the two shove each other and Edward was about to pull Bella away from the area when Emmett finally gave up, grumbling about Jasper cheating.

When Rosalie hit the stop button for the last round, Emmett ran forward and snatched the chair away as Jasper went to sit in it. He fell backward onto the ground and Edward picked Bella up and set her on the chair, laughing with Emmett as they exchanged hi-fives. Bella sat there, looking dazed for several seconds, but started laughing after she noticed everyone else doing so-even Rosalie.

"And you said I cheated," Jasper complained, yet unable to keep the smile off his face.

"Anymore games, Alice?" Emmett asked, looking like he wanted to play games more than Bella did.

"I have a piñata. But we have to go outside for that." She looked excited to go outside, but like she didn't want to be the one to suggest it.

"Alice…" Edward said cautiously, "What did you to do the yard outside? You know we technically don't own it, right?"

"Yes, which is why I went to the city for permits for it. Don't worry, we won't get arrested or anything."

He rolled his eyes, but picked Bella up and headed down the stairs. He froze the second they walked out the backdoor and stared, wide-eyed at what used to be just a bare stretch of land behind their house but now looked like a carnival. There was a ferris wheel, a carousel, a petting zoo, one of those moon-bounce things, a machine for every carnival treat you could imagine, a small ridable train that snaked around the entire yard, and a giant ball pit complete with twisty slide. Bella let out a squeal of delight and began squirming to get down.

"Alice, who's going to run all the machines?" Edward finally choked out after he set Bella down and she scampered off to the nearest attraction-the ball pit.

"We will. Oh, come on, we are perfectly capable of making those things move. You just push a button."

"Whee!" They whipped around to see Bella flying down the twisty slide and into the ball pit, Esme snapping a picture just before she hit them.

For the next few hours, Bella rode and played on everything they had set up, breaking occasionally for a treat from one of the machines. She seemed to be having so much fun and was so happy, Edward was a little disgruntled at Alice when she announced "Ok, time for cake!"

"But I want wide dat!" Bella announced, pointing at the carousel, as Edward picked her up and carried her over to the little table.

"Bella, you already rode that and you can ride it more alter, I promise. Right now, though, Alice wants you to blow out the candles on your birthday cake, so we're going to do that first, ok?" He set her down on her chair (It had a Happy Birthday balloon tied to the back.) and she crossed her arms in defiance.

"And after the cake, you get the rest of your presents, Shrimp," Emmett said. That perked her up. Now she couldn't wait to get her cake.

Esme had put a lot of effort into making the cake, wanting it to be perfect. First she spent days researching different cake designs and flavors, wondering which one Bella would like best. She finally decided on a carousel design-like the one they currently had in their yard. The cake had several layers and on top sat a carousel with four horses on it carved out of chocolate-hand carved by Esme, in fact. The icing was in various bright colors. She had spent days putting the cake together.

"Ooooh," Bella marveled as the cake was brought out and set in front of her. They sang Happy Birthday and she blew the candles out and despite all the treats she had already ingested, was able to eat two slices of cake with a scoop of ice cream each. There was an interesting moment where she absolutely insisted on Edward having a bite of the cake. Despite him trying to politely turn her down and direct her attention elsewhere, he eventually had to cave when the threat of tears came. He took a deep breath and then quickly chewed and swallowed the bite of cake Bella offered him, not even making face. Although, he did glare at Emmett who was snickering once Bella had turned back to her cake.

After the cake Alice demanded Bella opened her presents.

"Ok," she said quickly picking Bella up and walking her over to the petting farm area, "Mine first."

"Alice…" Edward followed her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm giving Bella my present."

"Your present is by the animals?" Emmett asked, amused again.

Alice set Bella down on the ground then walked over to the small stable that was set up. She walked inside and then reemerged with a pony attached to a rope and with a big red bow on it. Bella let out a squeal of delight.

"You got her a pony?" Esme asked in shock, but lifting the camera up to take a picture of Bella by the pony.

"Yeah. Every kid wants a pony."

"Alice, we can't keep a pony here," Edward said, trying to be firm, but the look of excitement and happiness on Bella's face as she stared at the pony was making it hard.

"I know," she said as she picked Bella up and set her gently on the pony's back, eliciting another squeal of delight from the child, "That's why I bought some stables in the Hamptons."

He gaped at her as she lead the pony around the area a bit, instructing Bella to hold on tightly so she wouldn't fall. She rode the pony around for a bit before Alice made her get off so she could open the rest of her presents.

"Ok, who's next?" Alice asked. Bella reached across the table and grabbed at a rectangular shaped package, pulling it toward her. "Ok, I guess whoever gave her that one."

"That's mine!" Esme exclaimed, delighted and adjusting the camera again. Edward picked Bella up and set her on his lap as he sat in the chair and helped her tear the wrapping paper off. It was an arts and crafts kit with paint, crayons, glitter, clay, sequins, ribbon, and tons of other crafty things, including instructions on different projects to do.

"Oooooh," Bella breathed as she took in everything that was on the picture on the front of the box.

"It's an art kit so we can do fun crafts together," Esme explained.

"What do you say, Bella?" Edward asked. They had been working on her manners for the past several weeks, but he often had to remind her when to say things.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, sweetie." She snapped another picture and Edward grabbed the next nearest packed, a bag with tissue paper coming out of it, and handed it to Bella. She pulled the paper out and lifted the object out, letting the bag fall to the ground.

"Pwetty……" she said. It was an old, antique porcelain doll wearing a red satin dress with a matching bow in her black hair.

"That doll belonged to my youngest sister," Jasper said, explaining more for Edward's benefit so he could repeat this to Bella when she was old enough to understand the significance of why Jasper gave her a porcelain doll when she was three, "When I returned to my home years after what happened, that was one of the few things that had been left behind."

"Oh, Jasper," Alice said lovingly, reaching up on her toes to give him a kiss.

"That's really thoughtful Jasper," Edward agreed, slightly stunned that he had given her such a sentimental gift-everyone knew he didn't have much of his old life left.

"Thank you," Bella said, sensing her cue to speak now.

Next she unwrapped a large box-shaped present which turned out to be a trunk full of old children's books and novels-all first editions-from Carlisle.

"She always seemed to love those books you read to her, so I decided to give her some more reading material," he explained.

"I told you," Esme said, "That girl is a reader."

The last package was a small gold locket in the shape of a heart. On the outside was the inscription "You are my life." The inside had a picture of the two together. He knew it wouldn't mean much to her now, but he had wanted to get her something that showed her how special she was to him and a mere toy or plaything wouldn't do that for him.

It had started getting dark as they opened the present and Bella started yawning, so they began cleaning up the wrapping paper and preparing to clean things up. Edward picked Bella up to take her inside and get her ready for bed when Rosalie, who had been standing off to the side walked over to him.

"What about my present?" she asked. Everyone stared at her shocked; no one had expected Rosalie to get her anything. She took their staring as permission and handed a small wrapped package to the toddler.

"Happy Birthday," she muttered then walked over to the table with the cake on it and began packing it up. Bella ripped the paper off and revealed two shiny silver metal combs encrusted with blue jewels in ornate patterns.

"Ooh," she exclaimed, entranced by anything pretty. Edward wondered why she would have gotten Bella combs, since they wouldn't stay in her hair while she was at this young age, but had Bella thank her anyway.

* * *

"Did you have a good birthday?" Edward asked as Bella snuggled under her blankets, clutching Bun-bun in one arm and Bear-bear in the other. She nodded enthusiastically and he smiled. "Well, I have one more small present for you." She perked up at this and he handed her a small, rectangular present. She tore the paper off revealing the picture of her and her parents that Edward had taken from her house, now in a knew frame. She stared at it then looked up at Edward then back at the picture.

"Mommy and Daddy…" she finally said quietly.

"Yeah, that was at your house when I got you." She stared at it for a little while longer before he noticed tears welling up in her eyes. "Oh, no, Bella don't cry." He gathered her in his arms and held her close to him, rocking her back and forth, shushing her. He felt terrible, he had just wanted to give her something of her parents and now she was crying. Finally she settled down and he was able to lay her back down on the bed as she sniffled. He grabbed a tissue and wiped her nose and the tears off her face.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry."  
"I miss Mommy and Daddy."

"I know. I wish I could bring them back for you."

"Whewe awe they?"

He tried to think quickly, not sure what to say.

"Bella, they….Went away…And they can't come back. It's not that they don't want you, because they loved you very much and I bet they miss you tons right now, but they can't."

"Because of the man wif the wed eyes?"

"Yes." He hoped this conversation wasn't going to bring the nightmares back. She had been sleeping fairly well lately and he didn't want this to ruin that.

She thought this over for a while and then looked at Edward.

"You stay?"

"Yes."

"Fowevew?" He smiled sadly, knowing that meant different things to the two of them.

"Yes." He lay down next to her, pulling her closer to him. "Forever." She smiled and snuggled closer to him, hugging her stuffed animals.

Edward spent most of the night thinking. Was keeping her the right thing? It hadn't ever really occurred to him before then, but she was going to get older. And older and older and older….Eventually, she was going to die. He didn't like that thought, but it was still going to happen. It wasn't fair to bring this human girl into his family, have everyone get attached, only for her to grow up and die. But, he supposed, it was probably too late for that-everyone had already gotten attached. Everyone had been so happy for her and made sure that everything was perfect for her birthday, even taking care to get her presents that weren't just something simple you could buy in a store. Even Jasper had given her something special. So, they would have to just keep going the way they were and they would deal with things when they happened; it probably wasn't the best way to go about things, but it would be less painful in the short run to just live in the short run.

It wasn't until long after Bella had fallen asleep and Edward's thoughts had gone around in circles multiple times about Bella and the future and his family that he remembered something about the combs Rosalie had given Bella. Years after Rosalie had been changed, she returned to her home like Jasper had, to see what was left of her family. She had managed to salvage several things from her aged brother-things he kept because they were family relics and nothing more. One of the things she managed to get was a jewelry box filled with different pieces of jewelry and such she had worn. In the box was three set of combs-one of which she had just given to Bella for her birthday.

* * *

_To entertain you guys in an effort to get you to forgive me, I felt like sharing some ideas my friend Shawnna came up with to write on the locket when we asked her for help (She did give some good ones, these are just the ones that made us laugh. :p):_

_"I sparkle."_

_"You will have my baby."_

_"We shall not name our first kid Renesmee"_

_"As you grow, so will our love." ---Made me think of child grooming._

_After we made fun of her for constantly using "light" in her suggestions:_

_"You will always be the shadow of my life."_

_"You colored my life.....With light."_

_"Maybe we should just be friends."_

_"I will never leave you...Maybe.....Right now I have no plans to, but, I mean, that could always change so don't exactly count on it...."_

_Ok, one last note before I stop. I'm thinking of maybe starting a thread for this story on twilighted. If I do this, would any of you care and/or visit the thread and post? Let me know, because that site is pretty good for the author and readers to interact and such. _


	11. Author's Note

Dear Readers,

We've gotten many emails and reviews lately, asking if we plan on continuing this story. The answer is, unfortunately, not at this time. The flash drive on which our files are located suffered a bit of a beat up and we're both been so busy with school and work that we haven't had any time to try to fix it or remember what our plans were and whatnot.

We both feel extremely terrible. We know a lot of people loved our story, and we're very happy you've enjoyed it. We're thankful to all of our fans who have embraced baby-Bella.

At some point in the future, we might continue this story. We just felt this AN was necesscery because we didn't want anyone thinking we were ignoring them. Thank to you everyone who has stayed with us by far and we apologize for not updating and making everyone wait.

Sincerely,

WeKnowFanFiction.


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